SIRIUS Satellite Radio today announced that the company has updated its year-end 2006 subscriber guidance.
Last year with Howard Stern's move to SIRIUS rapidly approaching, we added 500,000 subscribers in the last 10 days of the year, representing nearly 25% of the year's net additions and clearly demonstrating the dramatic pace of holiday sales. While strong, this year's retail sales results since the Thanksgiving weekend have not been at the pace we had anticipated. We are updating our year-end 2006 subscriber guidance to between 5.9 million and 6.1 million. At the lower end of our range we will still add almost 20% more subscribers in 2006 than we did in 2005, a record year for SIRIUS," said Mel Karmazin, CEO of SIRIUS. "We have consistently focused on disciplined growth and continue that focus as we look to generate positive free cash flow this quarter."
The guidance range represents total net subscriber additions of approximately 2.6 million to 2.8 million in 2006, or year-over-year subscriber growth of approximately 80% to 85%.
SIRIUS reiterated that the company's first quarter of positive free cash flow, after capital expenditures, may be reached as early as this quarter.
By Sirius Satellite Radio