February Auto Sales And SDARS Relationships
February auto sales are in, and like the past several months, there is more bad news than good. The trend in auto sales has now begun to hit the production line. Ford and GM have both announced production cuts to their truck and SUV lines. This news hurts twice as bad because in many cases, the SUV and truck lines represent the most profitable segment for automakers.
The question that SDARS investors should be more worried about is the penetration into the car lines. While production does take it’s toll on SDARS, it has largely been offset by bigger rates of installation across more models. This deeper penetration may help SDARS weather the OEM sales woes, but it can not last forever.
The data presented in this article represents car sales, their comparison to the previous year and the SDARS company that is affiliated with the manufacturer. The numbers presented do not represent satellite radio installations. It should be noted that some manufactures conduct far more installations than others, so the relative “shares” of the market are not indicative of which company is seeing more installations. The data also does not deal with the costs of the various OEM deals. Each OEM deal has differing structures. Some OEM subscribers are “more valuable” than others.
Position – Long Sirius, Long XM – No Position OEM Sector
You know damned well that ALL 08 Infinitis are standard with XM and cannot be purchased with Sirius. At all.
Infiniti is doing a number of XM installs, but it is not “ALL” Infinitis as you state. Having just been at an Infiniti dealer (as well as several others) this weekend, the G35 required the premium package to get satellite. Additionally, at no charge to me they will swap out the SDARS receiver if I desire (based on Edmunds TMV pricing – so it is not “built into the price” – I am also not trading in). Regardless, we are not speaking about a large number of cars here. Infiniti sells 9,000 cars a month.
If it makes you feel better you can adjust the “Sirius Has Deals With” to 56.76% from 56.80% and the “XM Has Deals With” to 61.04% from 61.00%
When there is indication that Nissan/Infiniti are not offering Sirius from Infiniti/Nissan, or Sirius, I will make the switch in the chart. However, you can feel free to make the .04% adjustment if you want.
Tyler, Nissan has been completely removed from the Nissan site now. You cannot build a Nissan with Sirius and cannot even find the Sirius name mentioned on the Nissan site anywhere anymore.
http://www.nissanusa.com
The Sirius name has also been completely removed from the Infiniti site too. It’s not even listed as a dealer accessory anymore.
http://www.infiniti.com
You cannot get an ’08 Infiniti with Sirius.
All Infinitis except the G35 have XM standard. This includes the EX, FC, QX, M, and G37. The G35s, for whatever reason, are not XM standard yet, but will be.
Joe…
This is correct. Nissan is moving towards their XM factory installation program. Their marketying, etc. reflects this.
However, they are still offering consumers the ability to get either service. This is why I have still kept 5% of the production in this chart towards Sirius.
In the end, in the chart above, the changes are very minimal.
Until such point where there is no longer any relationship, I will list it accordingly. My experience with Nissan and Infiniti over the past weekend was that I could switch the unit at no cost if I desired. Dealers still have very easy solutions to install what the customer wants.
hippocritical (LOL) ass, which is Frontmed, now seems to acknowledge that not “ALL” infiniti’s are standard as yet. The G sedan which makes up 40% of Infiniti’s volume is still not standard.
>>> hippocritical (LOL) ass, which is Frontmed, now seems to acknowledge that not “ALL” infiniti’s are standard as yet. The G sedan which makes up 40% of Infiniti’s volume is still not standard.
Yes, I was wrong about the G Sedan — it is the only Infiniti model which isn’t now XM standard. I suppose they’re waiting until they replace it with the G37. I guess I should get my information from more reliable sources 😉
http://satellitestandard.blogs.....talls.html
At any rate, there is no Sirius for Infiniti at this point.