TORONTO – XM Canada announced today that it had 50,000 listeners at the end of February, 44,000 of whom are paying customers.
"XM Canada is extremely pleased with the strong momentum behind our subscriber growth that started in the 2005 holiday season and has continued in 2006," said Stephen Tapp, XM Canada’s president and COO, in the press release.
At present, subscriber growth is being driven primarily through retail radio hardware sales such as the Delphi RoadyXT. While XM Canada has an exclusive agreement with GM Canada to factory-install XM radios in more than 50 of its 2006 models as well as an exclusive agreement with Subaru Canada to begin factory-installing XM radios in three of its 2007 top-selling models in spring 2006, neither are contributing self-paying subscribers yet.
"XM Canada’s choice of award-winning radios at retailers has resulted in our winning a greater portion of the Canadian satellite radio market, and when combined with increasing factory installations by our automotive partners, I am confident that these two streams will yield strong year-end results," Tapp added.
Canadian Satellite Radio, XM’s parent company, will review its guidance when it reports second quarter financial results next month as it appears to be ahead of its stated target of 75,000 customers by the end of August, 2006.
The company continues to expect one million subscribers by August 2010.
