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

To: pcstel who wrote (2280)	2/26/2006 1:19:05 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3386

These guys are GIVING ME A PREPAID YEAR (via a roundabout process of XM giving me a free Roady XT.. But, that is somehow "different" than the SIRI process? They didn't give you a "prepaid year". They offered to give you a receiver of much lower value, in exchange for a contract. Soooo.. In other words.. You have no proof, No, in other words, it isn't a material consideration in the first place. Any corporation who computes churn can compute it in any way it deems appropriate. Obviously, the method should be disclosed. Whether XM does or does not include promotional subscribers in churn makes absolutely no difference; they have consistently provided sufficient disclosure such that any interested person can compute fully loaded churn if they choose to. It is, in fact, a meaningless figure. Of much greater importance is the churn figure XM computes combined with the "take rate" they provide informally for OEM installs. These two figures provide much more information than a blended churn figure which literally has no significance in the context for which churn is intended. I have stated that other businesses in other industries have used the same method as XM in accounting for promotional subscribers who choose not to activate. When this issue first was raised, I took the time to confirm for my own purposes this was correct and was able to locate at that time a couple of cellphone companies who had promotional periods involving 30-60 days whose 10Ks stated how it was computed. That was sufficient for me to determine that the method had some applicability beyond just XM. It is not an important point and I don't intend to spend anymore time on it, your namecalling and squirming notwithstanding. If you want to argue SUBSTANTIVE POINTS I'm glad to do it. But if I want to argue unimportant crap I can do so on the Sirius thread at any time day or night. You are the person who has claimed that churn is too high and ARPU is too low. If you believe that then explain why you believe it to be true. Once a subscriber has been acquired as a paying subscriber, the churn of 1.5-1.6% says that they will stay around for a relatively long period of time -- plenty of time to recover the costs to add the subscriber as well as time to turn a profit on the subscription once the company is operating at scale.