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

To: pcstel who wrote (2278)	2/25/2006 3:31:27 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3386

have asked you for an answer on several occassions? It is a moot point. There is no standard for computing churn. Companies have absolute freedom to compute it in any way they see fit, so long as the method is clearly described, which XM's is. At that point, it is over. If someone wants to compute a fully loaded churn rate, including promotional subs, they have all the info they need to do it. If that makes you feel better do it. I believe XM's method is about as good as you can get. You believe it isn't. Fine, use the bigger number. It isn't complicated. Do you have other "industry examples"?? Or were you making up the statement because it sounded good? I can tell you that when this issue first was publicly criticized I found a couple of cellphone companies who were using short (30 day) promotional periods and their churn was calculated precisely as XM's is. But I don't have the links and I'm not going to find them again -- they are rare, because this is not a common practice today in the consumer electronics sevice businesses. The comparison with Sirius makes little sense. The Sirius subs were basically prepaid for a year by Sirius (via a roundabout process of Sirius giving DCX receivers of equal value). Still, I believe the Sirius figure would be more meaningful broken out. Unfortunately, they choose not to break anything out they don't have to.