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Technology Stocks : XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (XMSR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: DaveMG who wrote (551)4/23/2003 9:39:55 PM
From: i-node  Respond to of 3386
 
Don't know if you caught the head of Delphi on CNBC last week : "Everybody seems to want one of these XM radios for their car, picnics,boats. We are
completely sold out".


I believe there was also mention made, if not there, then elsewhere by a Delphi person, that they would have sold 1,000,000 units by next year.

PCStel has expressed the opinion here that SAC will stay up indefinitely. While we discussed it at the time, today the facts are out -- SACs are dropping bigtime, and will continue to do so.

As to the shorting, I can only say the guy must have nerves of steel. Even if you don't believe in the company it seems nuts to me to bet against the kind of momentum we're seeing right now.



To: DaveMG who wrote (551)4/23/2003 10:45:02 PM
From: pcstel  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 3386
 
it's NOT debt laden due to the convertible nature of most of the debt, and it's certainly not junk.
I do believe the senior notes are rated Junk??? No???

I bought into the stock when it crashed in the fall because I felt it was clear the co would get the financing from GM and others.

No actually what you had was GM converting "long term"payables into debt instruments. So in event of a BK. Their "long term payables" which would be lost in a formal reorg, were converted to debt. As James Garner once said... "It's an old Arizona trick, but I have seen it used as far north as Montana." Qualcomm did the same thing with Globalstar.. Moved millions in AP's to Vendor Debt... You know they are in trouble when your vendors start converting unsecured paybales into debt instruments. If the can pick up some warrants in the process.. Even better.


It's true that sub aquisition costs are high but they're trending down, and as volumes ramp, they'll decrease at a more rapid pace,eventually to zero


Yeap!! Everyone always say this about "subscriber models".. The problem here is ARPU. $10 bucks a month in ARPU will support a CPGA of about $40.
Right now.. I calculate CPGA to be in excess of $250. At 14% cost of capital. Your CPGA costs you $35 a year in "interest expense", not even to begin talking about recapturing your CPGA.. At current CPGA levels.. Recapture is measured in YEARS.. versus months in other subscriber models like WSP's.

So it's not really a matter of how many subscribers you get.. It's how much you lose with every sucscriber, and your cost of capital to fund the CPGA.

All you end up with is articles like this...

"XM Satellite Loss Grows but Revenue, Subscriber Base Soar"

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. said its fourth-quarter net loss widened, but revenue soared thanks to rapid growth in the number of subscriber . The satellite-radio provider Thursday reported a net loss of $155.9 million, or $1.76 a share, compared with a net loss of $144 million, or $2.26 a share, a year earlier. Total revenue soared to $9 million from $532,000.

Yeah! I know, I know.. they are just getting started!!! Same story heard over and over again in the Subscriber Model business. Who cares if you lose money on each one.. We'll make it up in volume!! Where have I heard that one before?

I owned QCOM from Sep 98 to JAn 2000. I've seen and felt this kind of action before and IMO it's just darned foolish shorting this thing at this stage.
Yeap! Me Too!! I

messages.yahoo.com

Sold just after the split.. Highest I got was 179 and change

messages.yahoo.com

Then I shorted it in the 140 range.

But, this feels nothing like Qualcomm.. Qualcomm was selling at 1X revenue back in 1998. Had no debt to speak of, and was making money.

Lots of folks told me the same thing about shorting Globalstar!!

messages.yahoo.com

It all comes down to the math!

I was shorting these SDAR companies before people knew what they were!

messages.yahoo.com

I've got a couple of WSP's sitting on the edge of Bankruptcy with better business cases than these things.

Just don't take it as a shock when they announce the completion of the SPOT.

And so it goes

PCSTEL



To: DaveMG who wrote (551)4/23/2003 11:17:20 PM
From: pcstel  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 3386
 
Dave...Just take a look at this..

From the 10-K.

CPGA!

Cost Per Gross Addition.     We consider CPGA to include the amounts in SAC, as well as advertising, media and most marketing expenses. In our financial statements, SAC costs are captured in the Subsidies & Distribution while CPGA costs are captured by the combination of Subsidies & Distribution, Advertising and Marketing, plus the negative margins from equipment sales. CPGA does not include marketing staff and subscriber communication costs (found in the Retention & Support) or the amortization of the GM guaranteed payments (found in Amortization of GM Liability). During the years ended December 31, 2002, 2001, and 2000, we incurred expenses of $145.5 million, $84.0 million and $6.7 million, respectively. CPGA for the full year 2002 was $430 .

Subscriber Acquisition Costs.    We consider subscriber acquisition costs to include radio manufacturer subsidies, certain sales, activation and installation commissions, and subscriber product- and hardware-related incentives. These costs are represented in Subsidies & Distribution on our financial statements. Subscriber acquisition costs do not include ongoing loyalty payments to retailers and distribution partners, payments under revenue sharing arrangements with radio manufacturers and distributors and certain guaranteed payments to General Motors. During the years ended December 31, 2002, 2001, and 2000, we incurred expenses of $54.1 million, $9.2 million and $0 million, respectively,
related to subscriber acquisition costs. Our average subscriber acquisition cost was $116.03 during 2002. The amount of these total costs will vary in future years, but is expected to increase in the next year as the number of subscribers and revenue increase.
Go figure your Cost of Capital on a CPGA of $430 @ 14%! "Interest-only" on just your CPGA in 2002 is $60. That's half your ARPU to just fund your Cost of Capital. Were not even talking about re-capturing your initial CPGA, or defray OpEx.

So you see, it really has very little to do with how good the service is.. Or how niffty the radios are.. It all comes down to sticking the numbers in a spreadsheet and finding out that they don't work out.

Message 18272472

PCSTEL