… Costs, Losses Drop …

XM is still losing money; but says it is steadily narrowing those losses.
For the third quarter, XM reported a net loss of $118 million as compared to $133.5 million for the same period a year ago. XM reported an EBITDA loss of $62.9 million for the quarter. That compares to $64.4 million for the third quarter 2003, a period that included $4.4 million in de-leveraging charges.
The satcaster also is slowly reducing its costs to acquire each subscriber. Such costs for Q3 were $89 per subscriber. This figure represents subscriber acquisition costs of $57, as well as advertising and marketing expenses.
XM says the $89 figure is an improvement of $38, or 30 percent, compared to the $127 for total subscriber costs reported in the third quarter 2003.
For third quarter 2004, XM reported quarterly revenue of $65.4 million, more than doubling the $26.9 million reported in the third quarter 2003. By comparison, Sirius had third-quarter revenue of $19.1 million, RW Online reported last month.
XM revenue for the quarter represented a 23% increase compared to the second quarter.