Sirius Hits 3 Million (1 Viewer)

[Ernie Estrella]

Reuters
Sirius meets customer goal of 3 million
Tuesday December 27, 8:43 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NasdaqNM:SIRI - News) said on Tuesday that it recently surpassed 3 million subscribers and expects a strong year-end.
The new subscriber figure meets a target Sirius set at the beginning of last month to end the year with more than 3 million customers. It had started the quarter with 2.17 million subscribers.

Sirius trails XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (NasdaqNM:XMSR - News) in the market for paid satellite radio services, but it hopes to boost its growth in 2006 with the addition of shock-jock Howard Stern to its line-up.

Sirius shares were up 3 percent in early trading on Inet at $7.02, after finishing at $6.83 in regular trading on the Nasdaq on Friday.

 

[Greg Haynes]

Can't wait to see if Sirius will pass XM in 2006.

 

[Blu]

I don't know if they will or not. I'm a subscriber and have been for a few months and love Sirius.

There are some co-workers who have XM and are considering changing after listening to my boombox at work for a while because of the content.

With that said, another three million people added in one year?

That is a very large goal, I don't know if they can make up the difference or not but it will be interesting to see the race!

 

[Chris]

I just don't see the need for SIRIUS to pit itself directly against XM. I mean, on one level, it seems obvious that it would; but it's real opponent in the marketplace isn't XM, which holds a small set of listeners (relative to the whole) but Terrestrial Radio.

Both Satellite radio companies did well over the holiday (very well) and both have a lot to crow about for '05. But '06 could be very big for them, not by necessarily taking customers away from the other, but by bringing in new customers and converting people from terrestrial radio, the most likely source of new listeners!

 

[Blu]

That is really the competetion.

Satellite vs. Terrestrial.

I see lots of potential for both services and they really are competeting against FM right now.

I do believe that Sirius has positioned itself better than XM has but maybe I'm biased

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I agree with this. I'll admit I signed on to Sirius for Howard, having listened to him since I first heard him on a trip to NYC back in 1987. But since I've had the service, the music selection, lack of commercials, the channels dedicated to one programming choice, the great hosts for shows, etc., has me feeling that if Howard never came to Satellite, I'd still keep it. Where else can I get 24/7 Stones, Springsteen and Elvis? I can switch from exclusively 80's Alternative (1st Wave) to Big Bands and Standards (Standard Time) to current alternative (Alt Nation) to sappy love songs (Sirius Love) anytime the mood strikes. Throw in Joan Jett, Johnny Ramone and Little Steven van Silvio hosting shows and programming channels, (with shows being repeated often for my convenience) and I'm hooked. No stations in my area have that type of programming, none - and I live just outside of Boston.

I can't tell you how I felt a few weeks back when I was listening to 1st Wave (or maybe Underground Garage) on a Saturday night and heard some amazing songs played by a host who sounded a little like Joan Jett. The smile that crossed my face when she said "This is Joanie, signing off", telling me that it was Joan Jett, was classic.

 

[Brent T]

I love you guys.

 

[Devin U]

Remember that Sirius counts factory installed car radios as subscribers on cars that havent yet sold or have had the radios activated. Who knows how many Fords and DaimlerChrysler vehicles are sitting on lots with unactivated Sirius units that Sirius counts as subscribers.

 

[Blu]

It would seem that there would be hundreds of thousands of subscribers then if every Ford and Chrysler vehicle were counted and far more than the nearly three million subs that are counted.

Don't you think?

I would also like to see where that fact comes from, it seems dubious at best to me.

 

[Chris]

Neither SIRI or XM count installs before they are active. Doing so would be a clear violation of the SEC rules and guidelines established for tracking their profitability.

SIRI and XM -do- count vehicles which have just been sold, as GM, Ford, and others have deals with XM/SIRI to provide a "free trial" normally something like 6 months, or sometimes a year, to a new car buyer. These do count as subscribers and both companies use these figures.

Anything said otherwise regarding either company is ridiculous.

 

[MarkMel]

XM uses figures from the unborn children of pregnant mothers to boost their numbers. While Sirius trolls graveyards looking for the names of the recently deceased to add to their subscriber lists.

Source - Some guy told me.

 

[Devin U]

http://www.shareholder.com/sirius/ed...uarterly&Year=

"As of September 30, 2005, we had 2,173,920 subscribers as compared with 1,143,258 subscribers as of December 31, 2004 and 662,289 subscribers as of September 30, 2004. Our subscriber totals include subscribers under our regular pricing plans, as well as subscribers currently in promotional periods; subscribers that have prepaid, including payments from automakers for prepaid bundled subscriptions included in the sale or lease price of a new vehicle; and active SIRIUS radios under our agreement with Hertz."

The automakers "prepay" for the trial portion of the radio. They count every unsold car with a factory installed radio as a subscriber even though the radio hasnt been activated. What if all of a sudden a cell phone company was to say that they currently have 50 million unsold prepaid cell phones in inventory, therefore, making them the largest cell service provider? They'd get laughed at.

 

[Devin U]

The quote I posted above was taken from Sirius' SEC filings under section 1, Buisness. Its kinda like what retail stores have with gift cards. You could sell $1,000,000,000 in gift cards, but untill those cards are redeemed, you havent made a sale. Sirius cannot count the revenue untill the radio is activated, but they dont seem to have a problem counting it as a subscription.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Actually, you have made a sale. You sold the card. If the card is never redeemed, you are actually ahead of the game, because you got the money and only gave up a flimsy plastic card.

 

[Chris]

Oh lord. Look at what it says "subscribers that have PREPAID". In other words, the customer is not the end user, but the auto dealer (ford or otherwise). In those cases, those vehicles have been shipped to the lot with a guarantee to SIRIUS that they will be active (1) and (2) SIRI has already received the money.

Note: this is important, they have already received the money

What do you want them to do with it otherwise? If they collect the money, they are legally obligated to account for it. And Ford, etc. account for those based on installs.

Now, let's say user A buys that ford vehicle with SIRI installed and never turns it on. It makes not a lick of difference to SIRI, as they already have collected the money.

Note, XM also counts OEM pre-paid subscribers, as well as OEM subscribers:

http://www.xmradio.com/pdf/Q3_2005_E...s_10272005.pdf

Now, here is the deal:

Cars which come with SIRI or XM as an installable option or a dealer option may be thrown in by the dealer, and are not activated until that point.

Cars which GM, Ford, Nissan, etc. agree to ship from the factory with an active XM/SIRI are counted into the XM/SIRI figures because XM/SIRI have already received money; and they must account for it.

I did not realize your argument was as it was; I thought you were referring to dealer options. But those which car manufacturers pre-buy have long been figured in - ti's what allowed XM to roll out with over a million installs virtually within a few months of starting; because their deal with GM was solid and GM had made a significant commitment to them.

Neither service would survive without OEM pre-pays.

If you're Walmart, and you sell a $1,000,000.00 worth of gift cards, and they are never redeemed, odds are you will be bumped into serious management for finding suckers dumb enough to buy tons of gift cards that never get used. In fact, companies push gift cards based on the fact that many people never spend them "all the way down" resulting in free money for the selling company. They already have your money - they made the sale - whether or not you redeem it for anything *eh* they don't really care, and probably prefer you not, if that's OK with you

 

[MichaelPR]

anyone think they will hit 5 million by the end of this month? If they can keep they equipment coming that is...