Satellite Radio Manufacturers Entering Home Market

LAS VEGAS— Several satellite radio hardware providers, including Jensen, Kenwood and Sharp, are planning to release home and portable satellite radio products to complement recent car introductions.

Jensen debuted at CES here the first satellite-radio-enabled boom box —a Sirius-ready unit that has an AM/FM tuner and CD player. It has the capacity for an external home Sirius antenna and has a full text display for Sirius channels and other information. Called the model SRB2003, it is expected to ship in the fourth quarter at a price to be announced.

Kenwood announced at CES the first home-based satellite radio product. The company said its new Sovereign Entre Entertainment Hub would be capable of receiving Sirius' 60 music channels via the Internet through an agreement between Kenwood, Sirius and OpenGlobe. The new Entre is a digital component with a 20GB hard drive and built-in CD recorder. It stores and streams compressed music files, Internet radio and Sirius' commercial-free audio channels and can distribute them to other rooms in the house. The suggested retail price of the Entre is $1,800. When Sirius' service via the OpenGlobe Web portal will begin has yet to be announced.

On the XM front, Sharp is developing a home-based XM-ready component and other XM partners may also offer home products, said Panero although Pioneer and Sony said they had no plans for dedicated home components at this time.

Sony, however, said it was seeing an unexpectedly high attachment rate of over 40 percent for the home audio add-on kit for its transportable car/home XM car system, indicating a high demand for the service in the home (especially under a single service fee, as the Sony system permits).