Company: IRDM
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-005302
Chunk: 112

Company: Iridium Communications Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 8
Chunk 112
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 the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the consolidated financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Critical Audit Matters

The critical audit matters communicated below are matters arising from the current period audit of the consolidated financial statements that were communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relate to accounts or disclosures that are material to the consolidated financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matters below, providing separate opinions on the critical audit matters or on the accounts or disclosures to which they relate.

Changes in estimated useful lives of satellites

As discussed in Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements, the Company’s satellites are depreciated using the straight-line method over their respective estimated useful lives, which are currently estimated to be 17.5 years. The Company applied judgment in determining the useful lives based on factors such as engineering data relating to the operation and performance of its satellite network, the Company’s long-term strategy for using the assets, and the manufacturer’s estimated design life for the assets. As discussed in Note 4, as of December 31, 2024, the Company had recorded $1,791,730 thousand in total depreciable property and equipment, net of accumulated depreciation, which included its satellites.

We identified the evaluation of the determination of changes in estimated useful lives of satellites as a critical audit matter. A high degree of subjective auditor judgment was required to evaluate the Company’s estimated useful lives of the satellites. Specifically, assessing the factors used to determine the estimated useful lives required subjective auditor 

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judgment due to the degree of uncertainty associated with the outcome of uncertain future events which required forward looking assumptions. Changes to the estimated useful lives of satellites could have a significant impact on the timing of recognition of depreciation expense and hosted payload revenue.

The following are the primary procedures