April 02, 2005
XM Radio Reports Large Subscriber Gain
XM Radio announced that it has acquired 540,000 new subscribers in the first three months of 2005. That is an astounding 68% increase from the year before, even with the announced price increase to $12.95 from $9.99 a month. This puts XM at 3.77 million subscribers vs. the 1.2 million at Sirius. Moreover the XM Chairman said he would have no problems with a radio manufacturer who wants to make hardware that plays both Sirius and XM content.When asked after a keynote speech whether he would consider letting manufacturers build radios that could play both XM's and Sirius's service, Parsons said he'd have "no problem" with such a product.
"I guess I responded in a not-adversarial way, and I guess people were surprised," Parsons said yesterday. "This is a new market -- we will be strong aggressive competitors, and we understand there will be good times to cooperate."
