New York – Sirius Satellite Radio announced today that Chrysler will offer Sirius radios as an option installed at the car dealer for Jeep, Dodge and Mercedes-Benz as well as Chrysler vehicles.
‘Following service validation’, said a prepared release, Sirius will be available from Mopar at Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Mercedes dealerships this fall. Chrysler Group also expects to offer Sirius radios as a factory installed option on select 2003 model vehicles. Specific details will be announced in June.
Sirius also announced it will make its service available starting tomorrow in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin, bringing the total number of states with service to 28. Nationwide delivery is planned for July 1.
Daimler Chrysler and Ford are investors in Sirius.
The announcements were made at a new conference releasing the company’s first quarter results ending March 31. Sirius said the company sold only 412 subscriptions during the period from its launch February 14 to the end of March. Given that Sirius service was available only in four markets without advertising, the company said it expected very low subscription rates for the quarter and was still comfortable with analyst projections of 100,000 to 150,000 subscriptions for the year.
Said a spokesman, ‘We emphasized from the beginning that our first sub announcements would be very low. For us the clock starts ticking on July 1 when we launch our advertising and marketing campaigns and go national.’
In addition to the 10 new markets launching tomorrow, Sirius will add 10 other markets June 1 and the remainder of the US by July 1.
At the same time, the company reported a loss before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and non-cash stock compensation (EBITDA) of $45.3 million for the first quarter, up from an EBITDA loss of $36.3 million in the year-ago period.
Net loss for the first three months climbed to $78.9 million, up from $54.1 million in the same quarter a year ago. Total revenue for the first quarter was $33,000 vs. no revenue in the same three months in 2001. The company said it had $423 million in cash, cash equivalents, marketable securities and restricted investments available as of March 31.
On target for expected nationwide service by July 1, according to Sirius, the company added Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin in May. Service is already available throughout the western and mid-western parts of the United States.
