TORONTO – XM Radio’s parent company, Canadian Satellite Radio Holdings reported Friday it increased revenue by 33% to $52.5 million in fiscal year 2009, ended August 31, 2009.
Self-paying subscribers rose by 23% to 380,900, which helped reduce adjusted operating loss by 54% to $14.3 million, the company reported. (This is still well back of privately-held Sirius Canada, which reported last year it had topped 750,000 subs)
"Our disciplined focus on profitability has delivered very strong results in what was a challenging year for Canada, particularly in the automotive industry," said Michael Moskowitz, president and CEO of XM Canada, in the release. "We continued to make record gains in the automotive sector due in large part to increasing the number of vehicles with XM radios and having more of those new car buyers become XM subscribers.
“This resulted in double-digit revenue and subscriber growth and a significant improvement to our bottom line," stated Moskowitz. "We are confident that our new products, wireless applications, and programming improvements will help us further grow subscribers, revenue, and cash flow next year regardless of the magnitude of any recovery."
Automotive subscribers grew by 49% year-over-year and represented 89% of all new XM Canada subscribers in 2009, the company added. As well, the XM SkyDock, which is available Stateside, will be coming to Canada later this year and can bring live satellite radio to iPod users in their cars.
