Audio entertainment giant SiriusXM, the home of Howard Stern, said Tuesday that it added 187,000 self-pay subscribers in its satellite radio unit in the third quarter, while paid promotional subscribers decreased by 49,000.
In the year-ago period, it had added 616,000 self-pay customers and lost 828,000 paid promotional users. The total gain of 138,000 subscribers in the latest period compared with a loss of 212,000 in the year-ago period.
Sirius said its self-pay subscriber base stood at 32.2 million as of the end of September, with its total users reaching 34.2 million.
At its Pandora streaming business, the company lost 52,000 net self-pay subscribers in the third quarter, compared with a year-ago loss of 59,000. The company ended September with around 6.29 million total self-pay customers at Pandora.
Quarterly advertising revenue in the so-called Pandora and Off-Platform segment climbed 1 percent to $407 million, with the company’s podcasting and off-platform businesses generating $123 million, an increase of 37 percent over the year-ago period. Monthly active users (MAUs) at Pandora of 48.8 million were down 7 percent from 52.6 million in the prior-year period. Total ad-supported listener hours fell from 2.89 billion to 2.75 billion, but average monthly listening hours per ad-supported user rose 3 percent to 20.8.
Said CEO Jennifer Witz: “We are pleased to report third-quarter results that reflect strong execution during the period while leaning into investments designed to ensure SiriusXM will thrive long-term.”
Added CFO Sean Sullivan: ”SiriusXM delivered solid subscriber and revenue growth during the third quarter, and while we continue to closely monitor downward trends in the advertising market that add risk to our 2022 expectations, we are pleased to reiterate our full-year subscriber and financial guidance.”