SiriusXM expands subs; promises video
July 28, 2017
By Chris Forrester
North American pay-radio service SiriusXM continues to add subscribers and revenue. Its total subscriber base is now more than 32 million, with net self-pay growth reaching 466,000 for the broadcaster’s second quarter (to June 31st).
Q2 revenue is also up, 9 per cent, to $1.3 billion, with net income rising an impressive 16 per cent to $202 million. ARPU is at a record level.
SiriusXM, controlled by John Malone’s Liberty Media (67.8 per cent), also increased its guidance for this year. The company says it expects to add a net 1.4 million self-pay subscribers, and achieve revenues of some $5.375 billion, this full year.
“In the second quarter, SiriusXM continued its strong track record of execution, and demand for our premium content bundle pushed our listener base to an all-time high of more than 32 million paying subscribers. We are pleased to raise our full-year guidance for net self-pay subscriber additions, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA. We also made tremendous progress on strategic initiatives in the second quarter with the closing of our recapitalisation of SiriusXM Canada, our acquisition of Automatic Labs, and our agreement to acquire a minority stake in Pandora Media,” said Jim Meyer, CEO.
Meyer told analysts that as well as winning subscribers from new car registrations, it was also doing well from the second-hand car market. “Used car additions grew 14 per cent in the second quarter and we continue to expect a very long arc of growth in used cars for many years to come.”
Used car penetration rate is currently 30 per cent, said Meyer. “From 2016 to 2019 we expect volumes of used cars being sold with built-in SiriusXM hardware to climb by almost 50 per cent. And in fact this year we expect the volume of the used cars sold with SXM to exceed the volume of new cars sold with SXM for the first time ever.”
Meyer said that the radio operator’s new Video service would launch in a Beta version by the end of this year. “[Our plan] is not to offer video that is there just for the sake of video or full length content, movies or any of that kind of stuff. The way we intend to drive video as part of our entertainment experience through our app is as a natural extension of our core SiriusXM business and around our personalities and our content.”