Sirius / XM Radio , Breaks 1.00 a share ( SIRI )

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) expanded its subscriber base 0.9% during the first quarter, a step toward the company's expectations of adding more than 500,000 customers this year and an improvement from last year's decline.
The satellite-radio operator said it ended the first quarter with 18.9 million subscribers, closing in on the 19-million level it had at the end of 2008. Sirius lost 404,422 subscribers in the first quarter of 2009 in the depths of the economic downturn, but added 171,441 this past quarter.
Shares were up 4.1% at $1 in recent premarket trading. The stock is up 60% this year and has nearly tripled in the past 12 months. The company teetered on the edge of bankruptcy last year before Liberty Media Corp. (LMCB) came through with a cash infusion last year. Since then, Sirius has cut costs and shown an improvement in revenue and its bottom line.
Chief Executive Mel Karmazin on Wednesday said as a result of the quarter's subscriber gains, Sirius expects to report solid revenue growth and a "strong" increase in pro-forma operating income for the period. The company plans to release first-quarter results next month.
In the latest quarter, Sirius said gross additions rose 29% from a year earlier while deactivations declined 11%. Churn, or subscriber turnover, improved to 2% from 2.2% for self-pay customers. Sirius also received more benefit from trial offers, with 45.2% of such subscriptions converting to self-pay ones, compared with 44.6% in the prior year.

-By T. Stynes