Tag Archives: XM

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Sirius XM Is Driven to Win

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By Rick Munarriz, The Motley Fool

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Sirius XM Radio is once against shifting into drive in the resale market.

The satellite radio provider announced a deal this morning with Kia, arming its used-car department with financial incentives to push premium radio if it’s available. Buyers of pre-owned vehicles that already have factory-installed Sirius or XM receivers will be receiving complimentary three-month trial subscriptions.

It’s smart bait.

Sirius XM knows that getting drivers hooked on premium radio is easy. A healthy 44% of car buyers who kick the tires of satellite radio convert into self-paying customers. Sirius XM also gets the important contact information that it wouldn’t otherwise have, allowing the company to market directly to buyers of secondhand cars down the line.

The South Korean automaker’s Kia Motors America subsidiary joins what are now more than 9,000 auto dealerships in the Sirius XM Pre-Owned Vehicle Program.

Just 30% of the 50 million cars that are bought in this country are new. One would think that buyers of used cars aren’t as lucrative potential subscribers as those paying up for vehicles with that new-car smell. Aren’t they less likely to have the disposable income to pay for radio subscriptions? Thankfully, that isn’t the case.

CFO David Frear recently revealed that there is no difference in the churn rate between subscribers driving off the lot with new or old cars. Churn rates will naturally be higher for those on monthly plans instead of annual installments — and that’s where the used-car market loses some of its appeal — but there is just no difference between buyers on the same plan. The value proposition for Sirius XM is too great on the resale front. The receiver’s already in the car! The investment was made years earlier. Why should it remain dormant?

Sirius XM can’t afford to wait in getting the word out.

The dashboard is about to get crowded as consumers load up on smartphones and tech giants introduce streaming services. Sirius XM‘s conversion rate has held up well in the connected car, but things will get interesting once Apple and Google introduce their streaming platforms later this year. Google hasn’t made any bones about jumping into the streaming music market, and there are too many reports claiming that Apple is negotiating with the record labels for streaming rights to ignore.

A war for the dashboard is coming, and the bigger Sirius XM‘s army is when the battle begins the better.

Let’s get serious about Sirius
Despite Sirius XM being one of the market‘s biggest winners since bottoming out three years ago, there is still some healthy upside to be had if things go right for it — and plenty of room for it to fall if things don’t. Read all about Sirius in The Motley Fool’s brand-new premium report. To get started, just click here now.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

4 Reasons a Sirius XM Bear Should Worry

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By Rick Munarriz, The Motley Fool

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Sirius XM Radio saw its shares trading below $3 for the first time since February last week, but not everybody thinks this is a buying opportunity. Zacks Equity Research knocked down the stock to “underperform” on Thursday.

There are a few reasons for the downgrade.

  • Sirius XM‘s 2013 outlook calling for 1.4 million net additions — and a more encouraging 1.6 million self-pay subscriber additions — is short of the 2 million net additions and 1.66 million self-pay accounts it tacked on last year.
  • The stock has run up too high — up 73% over the past year at the time of the downgrade.
  • Sirius XM already has a commanding presence in the U.S. auto market, now facing “growing competition from Pandora and Spotfy.”
  • Management policy may be uncertain after Sirius XM “lost the legal battle” as Liberty Media took majority control of the satellite-radio provider.

Those points add up to a reasonable bearish thesis on the surface, but dig deeper, and they all appear to be flawed.

Bulls fight back
Sirius XM‘s guidance was modest back in January, but keep in mind that Sirius XM was targeting only 1.3 million net subscriber additions for 2012 a year earlier. As the economy firmed up, retention trends improved, and auto sales remained resilient, the media giant jacked up its guidance to 1.5 million, 1.6 million, and 1.8 million, before ultimately arriving at 2 million net additions for all of last year. Downgrading the stock based on its outlook should be done with respect to Sirius XM‘s recent history of being overly conservative on that front.

As for the stock‘s rally, has anyone seen Sirius XM‘s stock run in recent years? Investors bailing on Sirius XM after the stock‘s 400% surge in 2009 would’ve missed out on a further 172% pop in 2010. Dumping Sirius XM just because it has had a strong run and is near a fresh 52-week high has been the wrong move in recent years.

When it comes to Sirius XM‘s presence in the auto market, keep in mind that there are a lot of old cars out there without satellite-radio receivers. As those autos get traded in, there’s a good chance that the new car will have a Sirius or XM receiver. There are more than 250 million registered passenger vehicles in this country, and Sirius XM is currently servicing less than 10% of them. There’s upside to be had here.

There’s also no empirical evidence to suggest that Pandora’s booming popularity has hurt Sirius XM. Conversion rates continue to hold within the historical norm of 44% to 46%. The monthly churn rate is currently below the 2% average. In other words, the wider adoption of smarpthones and Bluetooth-enabled cars hasn’t held Sirius XM back. If anything, it may be helping. CFO David Frear surprised investors last month by pointing out that buyers of high-tech cars are converting at higher rates than …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Sirius XM Goes Along for the Ride

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By Rick Munarriz, The Motley Fool

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The auto industry is tooting its horn, and Sirius XM Radio should be coming along for the ride.

Auto tracker Edmunds predicts that U.S. car sales will clock in at 15.5 million this year, up from its earlier forecast calling for 15 million light vehicles. If so, this would be the auto industry’s strongest year since 2007 — and Edmunds feels that there’s room for even more improvement come 2014 given the long average age of cars presently on the road.

Demand is there. The new cars with new toys are compelling. As long as the economy doesn’t collapse, it’s going to be a good time to be behind the wheel of the automotive industry.

This is naturally great news for Sirius XM. It has a roughly 68% penetration rate in the automotive industry, meaning that more than two-thirds of the new cars rolling into showrooms these days come with Sirius or XM receivers. The satellite radio provider’s 45% conversion rate last year means that nearly half of the buyers of cars with satellite receivers convert into self-paying customers after their free trials run out. The rough math means that an additional 500,000 cars in the market will translate into roughly 150,000 gross subscriber additions.

There’s more to the math than that, of course, but the bottom line here is that Sirius XM thrives when the automotive industry is revving higher.

Edmunds’ upbeat revision comes as the major car makers posted generally positive sales reports for the month of March.

Ford and Fiat‘s Chrysler, in particular, had spectacular showings, with sales up 5.7% and 5%, respectively, in March. It was the strongest showing for either company since 2007. Rival automakers didn’t have it as good, but the collective reports this morning was enough to get Edmunds to jack up its 2013 goal.

The car buyers are coming. Now it’s up to Sirius XM to keep them.

Turn up the radio
Despite Sirius XM being one of the market‘s biggest winners since bottoming out three years ago, there is still some healthy upside to be had if things go right for it — and plenty of room for it to fall if things don’t. Read all about Sirius in The Motley Fool’s brand-new premium report. To get started, just click here now.

var FoolAnalyticsData = FoolAnalyticsData || []; FoolAnalyticsData.push({ eventType: “TickerReportPitch”, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

The Streaming Music Dance Floor's Getting Crowded

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By Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool

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Will the last dot-com juggernaut to enter the music subscription niche plug in the amp?

Amazon.com is apparently the latest player angling to cash in on the success that Pandora and Spotify are having in serving up streaming tunes to consumers hungry for ear candy. Multiple sources are telling The Verge that the online retailer is in the early stages of talking to the major record labels, paving the way for an on-demand service that would be similar to Spotify’s platform that has attracted 6 million premium customers worldwide.

“Premium” is the key. Spotify has 24 million active listeners, but the real model here is getting them to pay up. Pandora has struggled badly on that front. It hasn’t had a problem growing its active user base to 67.7 million as of last month, but just 13% of its revenue is coming from subscriptions.

Sirius XM Radio , on the other end, doesn’t offer a free ride on its fledgling streaming platform. Even Sirius and XM subscribers with receiver-based accounts have to shell out $3.50 a month for access to Sirius XM‘s growing online features.

It remains to be seen if Amazon’s model will be a true premium offering. Amazon has other ways to monetize an on-demand platform. As a leading seller of music downloads, the Seattle-based e-tailer can try to make it back on the sale of individual tracks and albums. A streaming smorgasbord can also be packaged into the popular $79-a-year Amazon Prime loyalty shopping program, as the dot-com darling has done with monthly Kindle rentals and unlimited video streams.

Amazon can also make a streaming offering a cornerstone feature of Kindle Fire, giving the tablet a true differentiator in a niche that’s starting to get crowded.

The only thing we know is that Amazon won’t be alone. Reports have surfaced that Google will be rolling out a pair of streaming services through YouTube and Google Play. Apple has been reportedly in negotiations with the major labels since last year, and a recent New York Post update suggests that Apple is trying to secure lower royalty rates than Pandora or Spotify before moving forward with its offering.

The market‘s going to get crowded. A shakeout will come, but the online giants can’t afford to miss out on the trend. Amazon’s tendency to absorb short-term pain for long-term gain — as it has done in marking down its Kindle products so aggressively — will serve it well.

In the meantime, check out The Motley Fool’s new premium report on the company, which will tell you what’s driving its growth and fill you in on reasons to buy and reasons to sell Amazon. The report also has you covered with a full year of free analyst updates to keep you informed as the company’s story changes, so click here now to read more.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Sirius XM Isn't Afraid of the Connected Car

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By Rick Munarriz, Munarriz, The Motley Fool

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Skeptics have been branding Sirius XM Radio as a transitory technology for years.

In their cynical perspectives, premium radio may be hot now, but it’s simply a manner of time before the disruptor of terrestrial radio service gets disrupted itself.

The lead candidate for disruption is the connected car, as drivers with seamless access to online access can choose from the limitless number of apps that provider entertainment and edutainment on the open road.

Sirius XM naturally doesn’t see it that way, and CFO David Frear had a chance to argue his company’s side of the story at this week’s Piper Jaffray Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference.

Driving with the headlights on
Logic would seem to dictate that connectivity isn’t Sirius XM‘s friend, but Frear believes that the ability to serve content via satellite is still a differentiator.

Sirius XM has never shied away from the Internet. It’s been offering online streaming since 2003. It was originally included with every subscription, but now is offered as a stand-alone product. Customers can pay $14.49 a month for an Internet radio account. Existing receiver-based subscribers can pay $3.50 a month for online access.

However, the rub is that countless apps are available for less if not entirely free in ad-supported form.

Pandora‘s recent move to begin charging mobile users who want more than 40 hours a month maybe a sign of desperation as it struggles to turn a profit, but it’s also a testament to its popularity. It’s attracting more than 67 million unique monthly users, consuming nearly 1.4 billion hours of content a month. Spotify is now up to 6 million premium subscriptions. These are companies growing faster than Sirius XM, and automakers will continue to make things easier for them to reach your ears as you drive.

General Motors is teaming up with AT&T to offer 4G mobile hotspots in most of the 2015 model-year Chevy, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac vehicles that will hit the market next year.

Frear was slightly dismissive of the deal, pointing out how it will be great for AT&T wireless customers, but a much harder sell for the vast majority of GM drivers on other carriers.

He has a point. As the mobile market moves to shared data plans across several wireless devices it may seem odd to pair up with a single carrier. However, didn’t automakers go through a similar situation years ago in offering either Sirius or XM at a time when the platforms were far more distinctive than they are today?

The car of tomorrow is here today
Frear isn’t naive. He knows that connected cars will explode in popularity in the coming years. Sirius XM‘s moves to fortify its streaming offering — from last year’s addition of on-demand selections to its Pandora-esque MySXM personalized radio platform that rolled out in beta earlier this year — anticipate a future where more audio is consumed through wireless devices.

However, Frear feels that his company has …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Sirius XM Is a Used-Car Salesman

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By Rick Munarriz, Munarriz, The Motley Fool

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Sirius XM Radio sees the future of used cars, and there will be more lemonade than lemons.

The satellite radio giant’s CFO spoke at Piper Jaffray Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference yesterday, and David Frear is encouraged by the potential of secondhand cars.

It remains an untapped market for the company, especially as more and more used cars hit the market with preinstalled Sirius or XM receivers.

There are 50 million cars with satellite radios at the moment, and more than half of those receivers are dormant. In 10 years, Frear sees 150 million vehicles out there with receivers. There’s a big opportunity here for Sirius XM to grow its reach, especially as cars get passed along.

Data suggests that just 30% of automobile transactions are for new cars. Sirius XM has a strong presence in the new-car market, but that’s just 15 million of the 50 million cars that are being exchanged every year. Sirius XM has teamed up with its auto partners to offer free trials to buyers of certified pre-owned cars, but that’s just a 5% sliver of the market.

Sirius XM is starting to get aggressive.

Back in November, Sirius XM announced a deal with Automatic Data Processing subsidiary Digital Motorworks to reach out to more used-car showrooms. The partnership allows the more than 7,000 dealerships doing business with Digital Motorworks to offer car buyers three free months of Sirius XM service.

Sirius XM has a lot to gain through this deal with ADP‘s data intermediary. Unlike new cars where Sirius XM has to subsidize the receiver, acquisition costs for subscribers buying used cars with receivers already installed is substantially less.

One might imagine that used-car buyers are less reluctant to pay for satellite radio, but Frear argues that those who convert do stick around. There is no difference in the churn rate between subscribers in new cars and old cars. There is naturally a higher churn rate for those paying month by month instead of annually — and one can argue that used-car buyers are more likely to be living month by month — but generally the churn levels are the same for new and used cars.

Data can be surprising that way.

Frear was asked toward the end of the presentation if the buyers of new cars that seamlessly allow smartphone owners to stream Pandora through their dashboards convert at a lower rate than buyers of more conventional cars. Critics have argued that Sirius XM is a transitory technology and Pandora — with its growing user base — will begin to eat into Sirius XM as it becomes more accessible on the road.

Well, Frear surprised the audience by pointing out that conversion rates have clocked in higher for high-tech cars. He was puzzled by the data at first, but his theory is that the kind of early adopter that wants that kind of dashboard technology is already consuming across multiple channels. They …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Articles of Interest

‘Hungry’ Author Dr. Robin Smith To Oprah: I Was ‘Emotionally Anorexic’ (VIDEO)

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By The Huffington Post News Editors

A few years ago, Dr. Robin Smith was on top of the world. The bestselling author had a full schedule of speaking engagements, a life filled with family and friends and a job hosting a show on Oprah’s XM satellite radio channel. But in her new book Hungry: The Truth About Being Full, Dr. Robin reveals that she was still starving for true fulfillment.

In this advance clip from the March 10 episode of “Super Soul Sunday,” Dr. Robin says that she was “emotionally anorexic” despite her outward successes. “What it means is someone… and a lot of people are like this, who are calling themselves ‘full’ off of crumbs. You can’t get full off of the crumbs of life.”

“But this is what I didn’t understand,” Oprah says. “You are Dr. Robin…. You’ve helped other people figure it out for themselves.”

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Automobiles

The Continental: BMW Sells Husqvarna, An Electric City Car, Goodbye to the C6, and a Bad VW Group Decision

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By Jens Meiners

The Continental

Each week, our German correspondent slices and dices the latest rumblings, news, and quick-hit driving impressions from the other side of the pond. His byline may say Jens Meiners, but we simply call him . . . the Continental.

BMW C evolution

BMW has sold off Husqvarna to the Austrian Pierer Industrie AG, which owns motorcycle-maker KTM. The Bavarians had bought the (originally) Swedish company in 2008 and never achieved the sales and financial targets that were set with the purchase. Now BMW is serving up a politically correct explanation, saying that the realignment of its motorcycle business without Husqvarna will focus on “urban mobility and e-mobility.” It kind of reminds me of the reasoning in 2009 for pulling out of F1, in which reasons of “sustainability and environmental consciousness” were cited.

BMW has announced it is expanding its remaining motorcycle presence with an electric scooter called C Evolution and also talks of “further innovative vehicle concepts.” Perhaps the time is right for something like BMW’s C1, the Bertone-built city scooter sold between 2000 and 2003. It offered partial weather protection and was conceived as an alternative to city cars, but only sold in low numbers and was yanked from the market prematurely.

Technical University of Munich Visio.M

Meanwhile, work is progressing on the Visio.M, an electric city vehicle developed by the Technical University of Munich with assistance from consortial leaders BMW, Daimler, and a number of suppliers and public entities. The passenger cell will be made of carbon fiber, and it will be powered by a asynchronous electric motor coupled to an extremely lightweight transmission. Anti-lock brakes are standard, as is a torque-vectoring system. It is an interesting project, but I know for a fact that it does not rank highly on BMW’s list of priorities. The Visio.M is a tiny vehicle, and as of today, there are no plans to integrate it into BMW’s model range—ever.

Citroën C6

Adieu, C6! 

It has been over a month, but this deserves mention: The Citroën C6 is history, and the last one rolled off the assembly line in December. Based on the smaller C5 sedan, the C6 was a car that was compromised in many ways. I have tested several of them over the years, and while the air suspension provided a generally good ride, it was jittery over smaller bumps; the steering was utterly overboosted, Cadillac XTS–style; and the frameless side windows tended to be pulled out of their guides at over 130 mph. To get them fully up again, you needed to slow down to 80 mph. In 2009, the C6′s gasoline V-6 was killed, somewhat disingeniously leaving the luxurious Citroën only with diesel engines.

Citroën C6 interior

What’s more, the C6 is a prime example of how not to launch a car. The C6 Lignage—which previewed the design of the production C6—was shown in 1999, a full six years before the car went on sale. Offered at a far higher price point, it never matched the success of its predecessor, the angular and futuristic XM.

On the plus side, the C6 was a daring design, evoking memories of the classic Citroën DS and CX sedans. Its interior was stunning, with details such as gliding covers in the doors, and generously applied Mukonto wood, the sort used by the Zulu tribe to make spears. Far from perfect, the C6 had character. I liked it.

SEAT Ibiza Cupra

SEAT’s Flawed Hot Hatch

The hot hatch segment is in full bloom again in Europe. The latest entry is the SEAT Ibiza Cupra, a sister model to the Volkswagen Polo GTI with a 180-hp, turbocharged and supercharged 1.4-liter engine and a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. Sadly, no manual is offered. Come on, in this class? Surely, there should be enough volume in the sporty versions of the Ibiza (and the architecturally similar Audi A1, Škoda Fabia, and VW Polo), to justify the application of a six-speed manual, like in their lesser siblings. It’s a good thing that PSA still offers two vehicles in this class with a manual: The Citroën DS3 Racing and the Peugeot 208 GTi. I’ll take one of those over an automatic VW Group car any time.

2013 Honda Accord

Sampling an American Favorite

It was interesting to spend some time behind the wheel of the U.S.-market Honda Accord. For over a decade, the European and American Accord models have been different vehicles. American customers get a variation of the European Accord in the form of Acura’s TSX. I sampled the U.S. Accord in all available engine and transmission configurations, and my hands-down favorite, unsurprisingly, was the V-6 coupe equipped with the manual transmission. It handled so well and sounded so sweet that I would consider it against a 3-series coupe or Audi A5. It’s less of a love affair with the CVT, which seems to reflect a little too long before actually performing the belt adjustments needed for acceleration. The standard inline-four is surprisingly silky, the body is tight, and the suspension is competent, almost BMW-like, under spirited driving.

2013 Honda Accord interior

When you look closely at the Accord, you can see some cost-cutting, like the exposed trunk hinges. And I don’t get the instrument panel, which is a garbled assemblage of buttons and monitors. There are many ways to enter data into the navigation system, none of which works intuitively. And the styling? It is better than the previous generation, which displayed a jarring disconnect between the front end and the rest of the car, but I wouldn’t call it exciting. Nevertheless, I am not surprised at the Accord’s popularity among Americans. The too-innocent skin hides a chassis and an engine that tease you to play.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Car & Driver