A little while ago I suggested that looking at gross subscribers is a more accurate way of gauging market penetration, because looking soley at net subscribers can be misleading. Why? Because  even though the percentage of churn is relatively the same (both had roughly 1.8% churn), the base is different - so the final numbers don't show trending for the quarter. Follow me so far?

Anyway, so here's the gross subscriber numbers for the 3 months ending June 2006:

SIRIUS Gross Subscribers: 830,571
XM Gross Subscribers: 926,281

SIRIUS Net Subscribers: 600,460
XM Net Subscribers: 398,012

So, from a market penetration standpoint, you can see that XM actually did beat out SIRIUS for the quarter.

Now, before you get all in a huff - net subscribers is where the money is at - don't get me wrong. And the margin in which Sirius beat out XM in net subscribers is far greater than XM did in gross subscribers. But when the inevitable pissing match ensues, I figure both sides should have a lil' ammunition. :)