XM Subs Soar
By Amy Gilroy -- TWICE, 1/20/2003
LAS VEGAS— XM Satellite Radio announced new activations for the calendar fourth quarter soared 72 percent over the previous quarter reaching 145,000 new subscribers, and hitting a total of over 360,000 to date.
"We had a huge holiday season and we hit these numbers despite a soft retail economy," XM president and CEO Hugh Panero said.
He added that XM helped buoy car audio sales in general. CEA estimated total car audio growth for 2002 at 4 percent to 7 percent, he said, and "we represented a quarter of that. We would like to report next year that we helped home audio growth as well," Panero added in reference to the company's new push to bring satellite radio into the home and portable audio markets.
XM said its calendar fourth quarter results represented five times the activations of the fourth quarter in 2001.
