Shares of satellite communications operator Iridium Communications (NASDAQ: IRDM) fell an unlucky 13% through 12:05 p.m. ET after the company reported an apparently big earnings miss Tuesday morning.

Analysts had forecast Iridium would earn $0.04 per share (pro forma) on sales of $198.4 million for the quarter. Iridium's actual Q2 results, however, show a loss of $0.24 per share under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and sales of only $193.1 million.  

That sounds pretty bad. Iridium, however, highlighted the fact that its sales -- while perhaps missing analyst expectations -- still grew more than 10% year over year. Commercial service revenue rose 11.5% and engineering and service revenue was up more than 148%. Meanwhile, the company grew its customer base almost 14% to 2.05 million billable subscribers.  

Continue reading

Source Fool.com