XM to raise prices April 2, 2005

[dareames]

I installed an 05 Camry NAV in my 05 4Runner SR5 last weekend and I absolutely love it! Yesterday, orded the XM Radio Kit (PT546-33050) to go with it. A friend told me about XM raising their rates from $9.99 per month to $12.95 per month. They are adding a lot of Major League Baseball channels, ACC, PAC-10 and Big Ten games as well as 2 premium Services (The High Voltage Channel and XM Radio Online). There will be no change to the Family Plan pricing.

They are also offering current subscribers an option to "lock in" better rates from 1 year to 5 years. The website (link below) gives you a chart of the prices for each year option. But you have to call them before April 2!! I think I'm going to sign up for the 2 years which will lock me in to the $8.96 per month rate. Just thought I'd give all you XM Radio lovers a heads up!!

http://www.xmradio.com/serviceupdate/index.jsp

Doug

 

[Spinner]

Thanks for the heads-up, Doug. Guess I'll have to start reading my mail.

 

[Fortyounces]

From what I've read and heard (on the street....Wall Street that is)...XM is raising their monthly fees not to pad their revenues, moreso to allow them to cut the price on their aftermarket receivers/kits. Their thinking is, the cheaper they make the units, the more people will buy them. The barrier to entry (unit sales) has been the price of the units. If they make them more affordable, they'll in turn build their customer base.


As it stands now, Sirius' equipment is slightly less expensive than XM's. When XM gets to be the same price as sirius the only reason someone would choose Sirius over XM would be the choice of content, not the cost of the service or equipment.

The more people who have units, the more subscribers they get. Think about what Microsoft has done with the XBox, they started selling XBox cheaper than a PS2, they were actually taking a loss on the XBox game system, but they more than made up for it in the software side of the business. Sometimes you gotta give a little to get a lot. Now XBox is taking a huge amount of the marketshare that PS2 had locked down for years.

 

[97RUNNERltd]

Thanks for the info. I checked the Xm site and saw that online service will now be free as part of the standard service package. For the little extra cash I think they will be giving us more for our money. I am planning on taking advantage of the one year package price to save a little money. Keep in mind if you sign up for 1 or 2 years and decide to cancel your service during the contract XM will refund the remaining payment for the unused period of service. so how can you go wrong with paying in advance at a cheaper rate, with a refund if you cancel your service during the contract? I have siruis at home via the dish network and think XM has better programing.

 

[ZonaT4R]

40OZ,

You are right on.. With XM and Sirius being the same price and all the new hardware coming out, the choice is truly down to content. You could debate for weeks on which is better but this is probably a win-win for both sides (XM subscribers get more features & Sirius is now the same price so may pull some more people their way).

 

[97RUNNERltd]

I heard that XM & Siruis are merging together. Has anyone else heard this? I am not sure if this is true or not.

 

[Fortyounces]

NEVER!

they are two seperate entities. For them to merge at this point makes no sense. Neither one has even turned a profit yet. Don't look for any takeover bids (one way or another) until they can break out of the red (debt).

SIRI announcing their new content (NFL, Howard Stern) and XM announcing subscription price increase/equipment price decrease...leads me to believe they are focused on beating each other into submission, not joining forces.

BTW..for those of you out there with access to a copy of today's Wall Street Journal, turn to the top of page B2. Nice article about "7 steps to be a media moguldom". Explains what 7 steps XM/SIRIUS need to take to become the last man standing in satellite radio.