Panero: Subscription Price Hike Won’t Drive Away Customers

XM President/CEO Hugh Panero doesn’t believe raising the price for a subscription will hinder his company’s subscriber growth.
“That was not a barrier to entry,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “The bigger barrier to entry is just the upfront hardware pricing.” Prices for satellite receivers start at just under $100.
XM will raise the base subscription price from the current $9.99 per month to $12.95 and shift some programming from premium to the basic package on April 2.
XM has about 3.2 million subscribers and Sirius has about 1.2 million.