Sirius XM added more than 620,000 net subscribers in Q2. That’s up 38 percent from about 450,000 subscribers added in the year-ago quarter, it said. Sirius had more than 22.9 million subscribers as of June 30, the satellite radio provider said. The company said it “expects its net new subscriber growth to approach 1.6 million and revenue to approach $3.4 billion in 2012,” and financial results for Q2 will be released Aug. 7.
Industry officials on Thursday urged Senate approval of the Law of the Sea Treaty, saying it is critical to industry, from consumer electronics to telecom. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam was among those to testify at a hearing by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation not a party to the treaty, which dates to 1982.
Smartphone-driven aftermarket accessory revenue at $20 billion will exceed half of the $36 billion revenue produced by aftermarket handset accessories in 2012, said ABI research (http://xrl.us/bnb535). Smartphone accessory revenue will increase to $38 billion while feature phone accessory revenue will decrease to $12 billion by 2017, it said. Smartphone consumers will buy more and spend more for accessories, $56.18 per device compared to $28.17 spent by feature phone consumers per device, it said.
Some provisions of the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013, passed on May 18, “could cripple and certainly would delay substantially the overall Export Control Reform initiative,” said Undersecretary of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Eric Hirschhorn at a meeting of the President’s Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration on Monday. Hirschhorn said he hopes the first ECR rules will be finalized this summer or fall.
Eighty-one percent of U.S. cellphone owners would consider paying a one-time fee of 30 cents to get radio stations’ terrestrial broadcasts, according to a poll done by Harris and paid for by the NAB. Forty-three percent of the 2,212 U.S. adults polled April 18-20 said they'd “strongly consider” paying what the association estimates a radio chip costs, up three percentage points from 2010. Another 38 percent responded they'd “probably consider” paying 30 cents, up two points from two years ago. Seventy-six percent of respondents now say they'd use a radio built into their cellphone, an increase of 10 percentage points from 2010, the NAB said (http://xrl.us/bm6qa9). “We're hopeful that as demand for this capability becomes more apparent, wireless carriers will voluntarily offer this feature or activate radio chips already in their devices,” an NAB spokesman said Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bm6qbd). “Radio-enabled cellphones are a standard feature in much of Europe and Asia.” CTIA sees “considerable marketplace evidence that many consumers prefer Pandora and other apps to the FM format, so consumer preference has to drive outcomes in this space,” responded Vice President Jot Carpenter. “For that reason, we agree with NAB’s oft-stated position that there is no need for an FM chip mandate. Consumers who want FM-enabled devices can buy them, as the market already delivers a variety of FM-enabled handsets.” CTIA is holding its convention in New Orleans. (See separate report in this issue.) “For those who wish to listen to analog over-the-air radio on their smartphones, there are dozens of models that offer that feature,” noted CEA Senior Vice President Michael Petricone. “Similarly, the vibrant mobile phone marketplace also serves the growing number who prefer listening to Pandora, Spotify or radio stations digitally streamed on the Internet. Americans are entirely capable of picking smartphones and other devices with the features and functions they prefer. We strongly object to any attempts to remove the consumer’s right to choose by mandating the inclusion of analog over-the-air radio receivers in mobile phones or other devices."
U.S. Cellular posted $62.5 million in Q1 profit vs. $35.2 million in the year-ago quarter, helped by higher average revenue per user, the company said Friday. The carrier lost 34,000 retail customers on a net basis in Q1 from Q4, including a loss of 38,000 postpaid customers and gain of 4,000 prepaid customers. The carrier had 5.84 million total customers at the end of Q1. The initial LTE rollout in Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin is on track, CEO Mary Dillon said during an earnings call. About half of the carrier’s customers will be covered by LTE by the end of the year, she said. Smartphones accounted for 54.1 percent of all devices sold in the quarter, up from 42.5 percent in Q1 2011. Some 34 percent of postpaid customers are using smartphones, the company said. Total average revenue per user climbed to $58.21 monthly from $54.29 in the year-ago period.
The broadband adoption gap between blacks and whites is narrowing, the National Urban League’s Policy Institute said in a report released Wednesday. In 2010, the gap fell to 11 percentage points -- 56 percent for African Americans versus 67 percent for whites, according to the report. That gap is down from 19 percent the previous year, the report said. The league released the report at the NCTA, at an event attended by all three FCC commissioners.
Sprint Nextel won’t introduce any new WiMAX 4G smartphones this year as it shifts focus to LTE, the deployment of which will ramp up quickly after the initial six markets launch mid-year, Development Director Ryan Sullivan told us following a New York news conference for HTC’s new Evo 4G LTE model. Sprint’s Network Vision 4G LTE network, expected to be nationwide with 38,000 cell sites by late 2013, will debut in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Kansas City, Mo. In each of the markets, Sprint will install new multi-mode base stations supplied by Alcatel, Harris and Samsung. Field testing is being conducted in the first six markets consisting of internal Sprint trials and those with third-party companies, Sullivan said. The first multi-mode base station went on line in December.
Radio One Q4 sales increased 38 percent from a year earlier to $98.1 million due to the fact that the company now consolidates the results for its TV One division. The company wrote down about $22.3 million, leading to a net operating loss of about $19.1 million. The net loss was 29 percent smaller than a year earlier. “Our fourth quarter radio revenue was impacted by a combination of tough political comps, non-recurring national accounts and certain format changes,” at stations during the quarter, CEO Alfred Liggins said.
Nexstar’s review of strategic alternatives remains in process, CEO Perry Sook said Thursday after the company reported Q4 earnings. Sook said he’s reluctant to put a time frame on the review, which began July 21. “I got burned on some timetable projections I made in conferences last year, so I don’t want to do that,” he said. Sook said he would be surprised if the one-year anniversary of the strategic review came and went without some sort of announcement. “There is a sense this can’t go on and on, and I'd be highly doubtful we'd pass the anniversary date,” without a disclosure concluding the review in one way or another, which could include the board taking no further action, he said. The board is discussing various alternatives, Sook said. “Things move slower than we all would like potentially, but pencils are not down on this.” Nexstar shares have gained about 38 percent since the company disclosed the strategic review last year, but still about 40 percent lower than when the company did its initial public offering in 2003. For 2012, Nexstar is poised to bring in a record amount of free cash flow, as boosts in political ad spending, core ad sales growth, digital ad sales and retransmission consent revenue are all set to help results, the company said. Sook said Nexstar is poised to collect about 50 percent more in retrans fees in 2012 than the $37.4 million in 2011. “Our 2012 retrans revenue will not only be a record, but it will grow at a percentage rate approximating twice that of our growth in 2011,” he said. Nexstar expects further retrans consent gains in 2014, as the broadcaster’s agreements with another two of its five largest pay-TV distributors expire at the end of 2013, Sook said. “The vast majority of that impact would be felt in 2014.” Total Q4 sales fell 11 percent from a year earlier to $86.2 million, reflecting a $20 million drop in political ad sales and a sharp reduction in network compensation. Excluding political ads, Nexstar’s national and political core revenue gained 6.4 percent to $67.3 million. Profit fell 71 percent to $3.3 million.