Sirius Adds Serious Subs

[korsjs]

Sirius Satellite Radio added more than 359,000 subscribers during the third quarter of 2005. The satellite radio company said that number represents a 97% increase in net subscribers compared with the same period last year (182,000).

Overall, Sirius ended the third quarter with about 2.2 million subscribers.

Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin said he expects continued demand for the service, citing upcoming holiday season sales and new programming from Martha Stewart and Howard Stern on the way in the next six months.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6262977.html?display=Breaking+News

 

[Sirius_Rich]

This was a very good quarter for Sirius. I was surprized at the total Q3 subscriber number. Sirius ended the last two weeks of September with 97,000 new subscribers. Impressive.

 

[Purogamer]

Again, how many of these are non-auto sales? A lot of the stern fans will wait until nov/dec to get their units so q4 should be fantastic for them, but I'm concerned about these auto sales counting as subs no matter how long they remain actually subscribed...

 

[Sirius_Rich]

Again, how many of these are non-auto sales? A lot of the stern fans will wait until nov/dec to get their units so q4 should be fantastic for them, but I'm concerned about these auto sales counting as subs no matter how long they remain actually subscribed...

Bear Sterns has an educated opinion on the subject:

"We think the approximate 90% increase in the daily net add run rate, was driven by the start of the NFL season, as well as the strategic placing of marketing dollars," said Bear Stearns. "Further, we point out to investors, that looking at the daily run rate through Sept. 15 skews the true daily run rate at the point in time of Sept. 15, due to the seasonality of the business."

 

[Purogamer]

My issue with both of their numbers is that if they have 5mil subscribers, and I sign up, they've got 5mil and one...If I cancel in three months when they've got 6mil, they don't say "Well, now we've got 5mil, 999...", they keep it at 6 million. They've had 6 million people subscribe, but i'd like to know how many ACTIVE subscriptions they have ,and what percentage of their total subs are still subscribed, etc...That's much more relevant.

XM may have 5 million but if only 1.4 million are active, that's a much different story in the paper...

 

[Irish_Flyers]

TO kind of follow-up on this last point made, I just read this in the article about Sirius kind of "padding" their numbers with new cars, even if that new car is just sitting on a car lot. This mentions about how long it could take them to technically remove a person from their subscriber count.

"The bigger issue, says Butson, is that if a car goes unsold or if a user doesn't activate the service after the yearlong free trial, they don't immediately come off the subscriber count.
"Sean Butson of Legg Mason has been one of the first analysts to highlight the impact of new cars on Sirius' subscriber tallies. Butson says it's necessary for analysts to back out unsold cars from actual subscribers when comparing the two companies' growth rates.
To show up as a Sirius disconnect, it could be as long as 17 months," says Butson, who has a buy rating on Sirius and XM.
Stretching definitions to fuel Wall Street's growth expectations can help give you an edge in a close race, but some observers say it undercuts a company's credibility.
"It may be legal," says the former Sirius investor, "but at the very least, it is slippery as hell"

 

[Purogamer]

I responded to it in the other thread...