Sirius Targets Used VWs

By Amy Gilroy -- TWICE, 6/23/2009

New York — As vehicles sales lag in the recession, Sirius XM is pursuing used-car sales and announced today a promotion for certified pre-owned Volkswagen cars.

The company will offer a free trial of the Sirius Everything (standard Sirius) package for three months to buyers of certified “Pre-Loved” Volkswagens that include Sirius radios.

Sirius and XM have each offered free trail periods in the past with certain vehicles including Fords and Hondas. In February last year, then-Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin told analysts that about 40 million used cars sell annually and the used-car market represents “a very significant opportunity” over the next three to five years.

Also in November, Sirius XM president of operations and sales president Jim Meyer told TWICE, “The company is now old enough that we’re beginning for the first time to see sizeable amounts of factory installed satellite radios [in cars] that are traded in and sold, and now we’re very much interested in remarketing to get the next car owner to subscribe as well.

Sirius is working with CarMax and AutoNation and with certified pre-owned dealers, said Meyer at the time. “We’re looking at ways to direct market to consumers of those used cars to offer them a try-out. We’ve developed a lot of approaches and we’re out testing several of them now. This is going to take several months to evaluate.”

For its part, Volkswagen has exclusively offered Sirius radios since the 2007 model year, and Sirius radios are currently standard on the GTI, GLI, Eos, New Beetle, New Beetle convertible, Passat, Passat wagon and Touareg. Sirius is also standard on select Tiguan, Jetta and Rabbit packages.