SIRIUS Satellite Radio's superstar CEO Mel Karmazin decided to plunk down nearly $4.5 million today in exchange for 1,000,000 shares of SIRI stock. Karmazin paid $4.47/share thereby increasing his stake in SIRIUS to 6.5 million shares.

This is his second big purchase of stock, as back in January Mel bought 1 million shares @ $6.21 each.

[MarketWatch]
[SEC Filing]

SIRIUS Satellite Radio reaffirmed its 2006 guidance of over 6.2 million subscribers by year-end and continues to expect to add more than 2.8 million net subscribers during the year. SIRIUS also stated that positive free cash flow (after capital expenditures) could be reached as early as the 4Q06, and they continues to expect to generate positive free cash flow for the full-year 2007.

According to The NPD Group, SIRIUS achieved 54% retail market share in April 2006 and 58% retail market share 2006 year-to-date. Also according to The NPD Group, SIRIUS achieved 55% year-over-year retail unit growth in April 2006 and a 120% increase year-to-date.

Both SIRI and XMSR shares closed today at their 52-week lows of $3.68 and $13.75 respectively on the Nasdaq.

[Press Release] 

SIRIUS Satellite Radio's CFO and Executive Vice President, David Frear, will be speaking at the Morgan Stanley Media & Communications Conference today at 2:00pm ET. You can listen to the webcast here.

Then at 2:45pm ET, XM Satellite Radio's Chairman of the Board, Gary Parsons, will be speaking also at the MSMC. You can listen to that webcast here.

Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne increased his estimate for Sirius Satellite Radio penetration of total Ford production from 17% to 28% in 2007, hinting that the figure could increase further in 2008. 

"We remain bullish on the long-term model for satellite radio," Swinburne said.

Morgan Stanley also maintains their "Overweight" rating for SIRI with a price target of $8 per share, while upgrading XMSR from "Equal-Weight" to an "Overweight" rating.

[Forbes] 

(Side Note: Orbitcast has been going up and down like a rollercoaster today. Not sure why, but I apologize for the wacky German Error 404.) 

SIRIUS Satellite Radio ended the first quarter with 4,077,747 subscribers, that's 761,187 additions from the year ago quarter, giving SIRIUS a marketshare of 57% satellite radio subscibers in the first quarter. Q1 2006 revenue grew to $126.7 million, with advertising revenue increasing to a record $7.3 million - effectively giving SIRIUS 53% of total satellite radio industry advertising revenue for the first quarter.

Monthly churn was 1.8% and SAC for the first quarter was $113. 534,958 net subsciber additions were through the retail channel (at 169% increase from Q105), and 225,343 subscribers were added from the automotive OEM channel.

As a result of such strong gains, SIRIUS has increased their full year guidance of net subscribers to 6.2 Million by EOY, a SAC of $110 and total revenue to exceed $600 million.