SIRI, XM

Sirius Satellite Radio added 600,460 net subscribers during the second quarter of 2006 to bring its total subscriber base to 4.7 million, the company announced July 6. Rival XM Satellite Radio added 398,000 subscribers during the same period, reaching 6.9 million subscribers, the company announced.

The second quarter additions marked a 64 percent gain for Sirius compared to the same period in 2005 but a slight decline from the 761,000 subscribers added in the first quarter of 2006. The 2006 second quarter additions did beat Bear Sterns estimates of 565,000, analyst Robert Peck told investors in a July 6 e-mail.

XM’s 2006 second quarter additions trailed both previous periods. In the second quarter of 2005, the company added more than 640,000 subscribers and signed up 568,000 listeners in the first three months of 2006.

"As we previously indicated, subscriber growth in the second quarter was limited by product availability and overall softness in the retail channel," Hugh Panero, president and CEO of XM, said in a statement.

This is the third consecutive quarter that Sirius has claimed more than 55 percent of the industry’s new subscribers, Peck said. "While there has been a lot of debate on XM’s net adds in [the 2006 second quarter] given their several issues, we think the market has not focused as much on Sirius continuing to maintain a higher market share at retail during [the second quarter]," he said.

As the battle for subscribers continues to heat up, Peck said content most likely will be the distinguishing factor between the two companies. "The technological gap between the two has largely narrowed to an extent that the features available on one platform are virtually comparable to those on the other," he said. "In this environment, it is interesting to note that Sirius has led market share in [the second quarter] despite" XM’s broadcasting of Major League Baseball. "We will start seeing NFL-related promotions from Sirius beginning in [the third quarter], and Sirius’ next generation live wearable satellite radio-cum-MP3 player likely will be released by the end of Summer that could feature WiFi access."

HGCM

Hughes Communications Inc. has applied to list its common stock on the NASDAQ Global Market, the company announced July 5. Hughes began offering shares in February on the over-the-counter bulleting board under the symbol HGCM.

Separate, Hughes Network Systems LLC announced June 28 that subscribers to Hughesnet, the company’s two-way broadband satellite Internet service, reached 300,000 during the 2006 second quarter, an increase of 19 percent compared to the 2005 second quarter. During the first half of 2006, the company averaged more than 10,000 new subscribers a month, driven by gains in the high-performance professional and small business service plans, Hughes said.