Oh sure, there's a merger going on so everyone's one big happy family right? Not exactly. Everyone still wants to see how Sirius' and XM's satellite radio subscribers are stacking up against each other.
So here's some charts and numbers using the latest subscriber information to break it all down for you.
Total Satellite Radio Subscribers:
Sirius Satellite Radio: 7,142,538
XM Satellite Radio: 8,250,000
The above chart shows the total cumulative subscribers starting from the fourth quarter of 2001 and how both Sirius and XM subscribers have grown comparative to each other.
Quarterly Net Subscribers
Sirius Satellite Radio: 561,493
XM Satellite Radio: 338,000
Here you can see how Sirius and XM have added NET subscribers on a quarterly basis, going back to 2005. For the seventh consecutive quarter, Sirius has beaten out XM in net satellite radio subscriber additions.
Quarterly Gross Subscribers:
Sirius Satellite Radio: 1,002,145
XM Satellite Radio: 942,000
This chart shows the quarterly GROSS subscriber additions between XM and Sirius. I find that gross subscribers are a very important metric to track, because it eliminates variables (like churn) and shows the true market penetration. For the third consecutive quarter, Sirius has outpaced XM in gross subscriber additions. This even beats out the "Stern Effect" from last year.
Looks like XM is coming closer to closing that gap with Gross Subs.
What I would like to see is some chart showing side by side comaprisons to the finalcail data mentioned in these result calls. Sirus is getting more subs but at what cost? Is the gap between XM and SIRUS having a financial impact at either company?
Ryan, any idea of where we could get some chart like that?
Sorry, you cannot compare XM's and Sirius' subscriber numbers in they way this chart has done.
Everyone should keep in mind that there is a difference of over 1 million subscribers merely in the way the two companies count OEM subscribers.
If XM counted unsold cars on dealer lots as Sirius does, XM would have reported a total of 9.25 Million subs at the end of Q2 rather than 8.25 Million.
To put it in perspective, if one adjusts the method of counting subscribers between the two, XM's subscriber lead over Sirius would be about 2.1 Million subscribers. At 9/30/05, the point where XM's subscriber lead was at its higest, it was 2.86 Million.
With all the hoopla, all the criticism, all the Stern Effect, and all the wild spending, Sirius has managed to reduce XM's subscriber lead from 2.86 Million to 2.1 Million, a difference of 760K subscribers.
For those who love averages, that's about 1 subscriber for every $1,000 spent on Stern....
Stackpointer, I agree to an extent, and what XM and SIRI should do is count subscribers only when they are self-paying. No dealer lot, no free trials etc, etc.
It depends on when the sub is paid for. If the dealer pre-pays Sirius for the sub when the car is delivered but XM receives no money until the owner buys a sub after the 3 month trial, then the accounting makes sense.
While it's true you can't get an accurate picture of subs from that chart, it is clear that churn is hurting XM.
Gross ads are almost neck and neck, while net ads are almost 2 to 1 in Sirius' favor.
IMHO, XM has made some huge blunders over the years, squandering the head start they had over Sirius. I used to be a big fan of XM until the O&A debacle (another blunder on XM's part. They turned a lot of loyal supporters into begrudged customers).
I used to be out and out against the merger, but I'm a fence sitter now. I'll be the first to admint I don't like Stern, and I'm an O&A fan. As long as O&A have a secured unscensored spot in the combined company, I have no problem with it...
>>> It depends on when the sub is paid for. If the dealer pre-pays Sirius for the sub when the car is delivered but XM receives no money until the owner buys a sub after the 3 month trial, then the accounting makes sense.
Absolutely, positively, 100% wrong.
Like most things in accounting, WHEN it is paid for has no bearing, whatsoever. What matters is when the service is delivered (in accounting parlance, when the "earnings process is complete").
Sirius is not delivering the service (earning the money) until after the car is sold. The bogus subscriber counting is a way of putting maybe a million subscribers on the books and keeping them there far longer than the period during which they are generating revenue.
It is a trick and characterization of it as anything different is either a mistake or a lie.
"While it's true you can't get an accurate picture of subs from that chart, it is clear that churn is hurting XM."
--------------
XM's churn has been steady for the past two years, it is SIRI's churn that is rising.
You can't see it as clearly because of the difference in subscribers, but if they were in parity, you'd see they are still close.
Also note that SIRI's de-activation rate has doubled in the last year. The same thing that happened to XM two years prior.
Another important factor making SIRI's churn "look" better is that SIRI's OEM's have increased drastically, and they CAN'T churn until another year or so.
Hoo Hoo, Stackpointer and SatelliteRadioFan. Mel told me that noone would notice any of this.
Thanks for nothing, you guys. You just may have cost me my big raise after the merger. Hoo Hoo.
StackPointer,
"Absolutely, positively, 100% wrong.
Like most things in accounting, WHEN it is paid for has no bearing, whatsoever. What matters is when the service is delivered "
Actually, YOU are wrong. The reason for this accounting practice is because until a service is delivered, the payer can cancel that order which in turn means that the money was never earned by the service provider. Basically, the service provider cannot be certain that they will actually get that money, so they can't report it as being earned.
In this case, IF the dealer pre-pays Sirius for the sub when the car is delivered, there is a 0% chance that the dealer will get their money back. The difference is that this is an ongoing monthly subscription service. It would be like me calling up Comcast and telling them "but I was on vacation in for 4 days in June, so I want my money back for those 4 days". Yeah, good luck. It doesn't work like that. With subscriptions, until you cancel, you pay whether you use the service or not. Sirius is delivering their service to those cars ... it's just nobody is using it.
Dafunke dont worry its just more denial.....after a year they will come up with some other excuse why the gap is closed or reversed
Hoo Hoo, Dafunke and PNess, I knew all of those 7,142,538 subscriptions should have been counted now. I brought all of them in. I invented subscriptions.
Hoo Hoo. My raise after the merger just doubled. Hoo Hoo
(Don't tell anyone that the pre-paid car subscriptions were purchased at a huge discount. Mel's big price increases after the merger will more than make up for this big loss in actual revenue.)
>>>> Actually, YOU are wrong. The reason for this accounting practice is because until a service is delivered, the payer can cancel that order which in turn means that the money was never earned by the service provider. Basically, the service provider cannot be certain that they will actually get that money, so they can't report it as being earned.
Well, you're pretty confused -- but I'll say only that if the the service provider cannot be certain they will actually get that money, they damned well ought not to be counting it as a subscriber. That's the point.
>>>> In this case, IF the dealer pre-pays Sirius for the sub when the car is delivered, there is a 0% chance that the dealer will get their money back.
The dealer doesn't pay it. DCX does. And if the service isn't delivered, the money is returned. For example, if the car is flooded while sitting on a dealer's lot in New Orleans during Katrina. No Sale.
>>> The difference is that this is an ongoing monthly subscription service. It would be like me calling up Comcast and telling them "but I was on vacation in for 4 days in June, so I want my money back for those 4 days". Yeah, good luck. It doesn't work like that. With subscriptions, until you cancel, you pay whether you use the service or not. Sirius is delivering their service to those cars ... it's just nobody is using it.
Why are you talking about a subject you obviously haven't the slightest knowledge about?
Geez.
Why are you talking about a subject you obviously haven't the slightest knowledge about?
Good question to ask yourself Frontmed. Why don't you just eat your sour grapes and get used to the idea that Sirius is acquiring XM. Fade away, please. You are an embarrassment to satellite radio.
Geeez
Why do people still argue about this? The average car sits on the lot for 3 months before it is sold - so if you want a ballpark apples-to-apples comparison, just revert to Sirius's previous quarter subscriber count and add in the current quarter's net retail additions. Make sense?
If you want me to do the math for you, here you go:
Previous quarter subscriber count: 6,581k
Net retail additions: 130k
Actual listeners: 6.711 million
Difference in counting methods: about 6.4%
I don't really care about either company. But it's comical how for about 10 straight quarters now XM fans continue to make excuses when Sirius nets about double the subscribers. These are decent ballpark numbers - but go ahead and trust your emotions and try to find a way to discredit them anyway.
It looks like XM has the 0.0 effect
That's a situation where you hire two radio hacks who like to pretend they're Howard Stern in the worst way.No one listens to them on XM so XM is forced to pimp them out to FREE radio where they still garner 0.0 ratings and still have absolutely NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER ON XM SUBSCRIPTIONS
And that has to do with what, exactly? Does every thread have to turn into 0.0 Hoo Hoo blah blah crap?
Hoo Hoo. I don't care who's right, as long as I get my big raise after the merger. Hoo Hoo.
One thing's for sure, Hoo Hoo. We can always count on the leftover 10% of your audience to pay any price for you, no matter how high.
I wonder why noone's asked the obvious question: Why do the two companies count these heavily discounted subscriptions differently? Here's the answer:
Figures don't lie, but liars do figure.
Read my lips. There will be no price increases.
Hoo Hoo. You got it, Mel. We can always count on them to swallow our shit with a smile. They even swallowed my 0.0 shit about Greg and Tony.
Wait a minute. Maybe I should back off of the 0.0 shit for a little while. I may need some of the extra cash that Greg and Tony bring in to pay for part of my raise. Hoo Hoo.
>> Difference in counting methods: about 6.4%
>> I don't really care about either company. But it's comical how for about 10 straight quarters now XM fans continue to make excuses when Sirius nets about double the subscribers. These are decent ballpark numbers - but go ahead and trust your emotions and try to find a way to discredit them anyway.
Actually, Sirius tells us the number is about 10% of their total subscribers -- an estimated 700,000 of their subscribers are not subscribers at all, but are unsold cars on dealers lots.
Don't shoot the messenger. Sirius should simply start counting subscribers in a way that makes sense rather than trying to juice the numbers to mislead its gullible shareholders. Then, the entire problem goes away.
At least 3 of the professional analysts covering the sector had to point out in their comments yesterday that SIRI's counting method overstates the true figure by 10%. Wouldn't it be better if Sirius just didn't lie about the numbers?
Actually, Sirius tells us the number is about 10% of their total subscribers -- an estimated 700,000 of their subscribers are not subscribers at all, but are unsold cars on dealers lots.
on top of that Mel said in the shareholder meeting yesterday that the number of OEMs still under a free trial is not released. So basically every car that came with Sirius in the last year is counted as a subscriber as well. Whereas XM said they do not count a sub until it is off the trial and self-payed for.
I really have no problem with the way either company counts as long as they are straightforward about it, but Sirius always seems to try to hide these facts from the public until called out on them.
Frear gave the statement in October 2005 (i.e., before Howard Stern) that less than 10% of the subscriptions were in unsold cars. That was 2 years ago. Update your personal vendetta accordingly.
Hoo Hoo, I invented arguing like juvenile idiots on obscure strad blogs.
TELL 'EM FRED!!!
>> Frear gave the statement in October 2005 (i.e., before Howard Stern) that less than 10% of the subscriptions were in unsold cars. That was 2 years ago.
And the 10% figure was reaffirmed by management yesterday.
You guys are myopic. In either XM or Sirius' case, it doesn't matter is 1M suscribers are on trials, or even if 2M are. They've each stacked up, what, 6M new subscribers apiece? Trebled their subscriber base? 300% is huge revenue growth regardless of the last 1.8th of it being some frictional trial users. This is a cost leverage company, e.g. once the satellites are paid for, it's all free money, so as long as growth keeps ticking along, this will succeed. The only real question is if they can fend off the lobbyists (corrupt and evil mother-Fs that they are) and get the merger through.
You guys are myopic. In either XM or Sirius' case, it doesn't matter is 1M suscribers are on trials, or even if 2M are. They've each stacked up, what, 6M new subscribers apiece? Trebled their subscriber base? 300% is huge revenue growth regardless of the last 1/8th of it being some frictional trial users. This is a cost leverage company, e.g. once the satellites are paid for, it's all free money, so as long as growth keeps ticking along, this will succeed. The only real question is if they can fend off the lobbyists (corrupt and evil mother-Fs that they are) and get the merger through.
http://siriusbuzz.com/gross-subscribers-a-deeper-look.php
The subscriber breakdown by quarter is amazing. The Stern effect really shows with these numbers.
Don't you 0.0 fans usually have more important things to do with your time?, like hooking up with some underage kids like the rest of your pedophile friends who listen to "The Virus".....how sad
Don't you 0.0 fans usually have more important things to do with your time?, like hooking up with some underage kids like the rest of your pedophile friends who listen to "The Virus".....how sad
Don't you 0.0 fans usually have more important things to do with your time?, like hooking up with some underage kids like the rest of your pedophile friends who listen to "The Virus".....how sad
Hoo Hoo, look at me!!!
I was invented by two talentless hacks that when they couldn't talk about Hoo Hoo anymore, had to invent me me so they could keep talking about Hoo Hoo!!!!
Tell em how bad we suck, Fred!!
Hey Jack, the 0.0 boys are the #1 show in NYC, the biggest market in the world. Spin that. And you sound like you have a great sense of humor, enjoy the gossip game you fat housewife.