spacetoday.net: Sirius reports big subscriber increase, profit

Posted: Fri, May 16, 2003, 12:18 AM ET (0418 GMT)
Satellite radio operator Sirius reported this week that its number of subscribers doubled in the first quarter of 2003, while payments related to debt restructuring gave the company a temporary profit. Sirius reported net income of $51.9 million in the quarter on total revenue of $1.6 million, compared to a $90.1 million loss on virtually no revenue in the same quarter of 2002. That profit, however, was the result of a $256.5 million gain resulting from a restructuring plan designed to eliminate over 90 percent of the company's debt; without that gain, and taking into account other charges, the company recorded an operating loss of $99.1 million for the quarter. The company said it had 68,000 subscribers at the end of the quarter, compared to 30,000 at the beginning of the quarter. The company expects to pass the 100,000-subscriber mark in the second quarter and reach 300,000 by the end of the year. In contrast, XM Satellite Radio recently announced it passed the 500,000-susbcriber mark and is on track to reach one million this year. Sirius has been one of the heaviest-traded shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange this week, in part because the debt restructuring increased the number of outstanding shares by a factor of ten, to over 900 million.