EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Jun 8, 1999 (BUSINESS WIRE via COMTEX) -- DIRECTV
Inc., a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp., Tuesday announced that its
DIRECTV direct broadcast satellite (DBS) television service acquired
110,000 net new customers in May, a record for that month and a 57
percent increase in net customer acquisition over May 1998.
An additional 145,000 customers -- consumers who previously only
subscribed to programming from U.S. Satellite Broadcasting Co. Inc.
(USSB) -- were obtained last month by DIRECTV when Hughes completed its
merger with USSB on May 20.
Through the first five months of 1999, DIRECTV's customer growth --
excluding customers obtained from the merger with USSB -- is up 49
percent over the same year-ago period. Through the end of May, DIRECTV
had 5,159,000 customers to its high-power DBS service.
DIRECTV is the nation's largest distributor of multichannel digital
video programming, with more than 7 million customers, including
customers subscribing to the recently acquired PRIMESTAR medium-power
DBS service. |
