David Frear, CFO at US satellite radio broadcaster Sirius-XM predicts that its pay-radio service will be on the road to more than 100 million cars, vans and trucks by the end of the decade.

Frear, speaking at the recent UBC Global Media conference, told analysts that while predicting the number of new car sales in any given years was always a challenge, he was confident that Sirius-XM ‘in dash’ receivers would grow in popularity as more vehicles were now pre-fitted with radios suitable for receiving satellite broadcasts. He said there were about 235 million existing cars in the US with standard AM/FM radio sets.

He explained that most of those tracking the auto trade had downgraded the number of new cars/vans likely to be sold in 2012 to between 13.1 million -14.3 million, although he expected the economic conditions to result in sales toward the lower end of the estimates.

However, even if over time 100 million cars are equipped with Sirius-XM-suitable receivers this does not guarantee the same number of subscriptions. Frear told analysts that some luxury models have subscriber conversion rates above 70 per cent, while some lower-cost brands are below 30 per cent.

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