Mike Terry
June 11th, 2006, 09:30 AM
7:30 am on June 11, 2006
Telecommunications Industry News
Canada's biggest satellite radio operator, XM Radio Canada, has easily
exceeded forecasts during its first six months in business, with a total of
80,000 paying subscribers as of May 30th.
This represents growth of about 60% since the end of February, and beats the
company's own forecast of 75,000 subscribers at the end of August.
Some bad news for XM is that it seems to be falling behind rival, Sirius
Satellite Radio in terms of overall popularity. Sirius, which trails XM in
the much larger American market, announced over a month ago (May 10th) that
it had managed to recruit 100,000 customers in Canada.
These numbers suggest that Sirius has picked up twice as many customers as
its rival in the past few months, since each company had about 50,000 users
at the end of February.
In an attempt to turn around this apparent trend, XM recently beefed up its
channel selection from 80 to 100 stations, but was quickly outdone once
again by Sirius, which quickly began offering 110 channels.
XM, however, has scored at least one decisive victory in the past few
months, announcing a distribution agreement with Toyota Canada. Beginning in
August select Toyota and Lexus vehicles will come equipped with XM radio
receivers, and free six-month subscriptions.
As both providers bend over backwards to recruit the most Canadian
subscribers, it is most definitely customers that stand to win out. At this
early stage, Canada's satellite radio industry is still ripe for the
picking, and everyone knows it.
http://www.teleclick.ca/2006/06/xm-radio-canada-reports-60-growth-but-falls-behind-sirius/
Telecommunications Industry News
Canada's biggest satellite radio operator, XM Radio Canada, has easily
exceeded forecasts during its first six months in business, with a total of
80,000 paying subscribers as of May 30th.
This represents growth of about 60% since the end of February, and beats the
company's own forecast of 75,000 subscribers at the end of August.
Some bad news for XM is that it seems to be falling behind rival, Sirius
Satellite Radio in terms of overall popularity. Sirius, which trails XM in
the much larger American market, announced over a month ago (May 10th) that
it had managed to recruit 100,000 customers in Canada.
These numbers suggest that Sirius has picked up twice as many customers as
its rival in the past few months, since each company had about 50,000 users
at the end of February.
In an attempt to turn around this apparent trend, XM recently beefed up its
channel selection from 80 to 100 stations, but was quickly outdone once
again by Sirius, which quickly began offering 110 channels.
XM, however, has scored at least one decisive victory in the past few
months, announcing a distribution agreement with Toyota Canada. Beginning in
August select Toyota and Lexus vehicles will come equipped with XM radio
receivers, and free six-month subscriptions.
As both providers bend over backwards to recruit the most Canadian
subscribers, it is most definitely customers that stand to win out. At this
early stage, Canada's satellite radio industry is still ripe for the
picking, and everyone knows it.
http://www.teleclick.ca/2006/06/xm-radio-canada-reports-60-growth-but-falls-behind-sirius/