By Relmor Demitirius

Shares of Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq:SIRI) traded over its 52 week high close yesterday and closed right at it, .725 cents.  This was up around 9% from its close the previous trading day.  This comes off news from the company that they added 257,000 additional subscribers in the 4th quarter.  The street was expecting much lower.  They also simply confirmed guidance, which is never a bad idea in this economy, before the conference call.  No exact numbers were given, except those in relation to subscribers.

All reported metrics were improvements over Q3 of 2009.  The take rate, which measure how many people become permanent payers to the product from the OEM promo end of the business (car sales basically), was up to 46% from 44%.  This is good news for Sirius XM.  It appears the economic downturn effects on Sirius XM are ending.  Also the churn, what percentage of subscribers who cancel their service per month, when down slighly, to 1.97%. 

They also added around 250,000 self pay subscribers, validating the effects of increasing the take rate, and the lower churn.  These “self pay” subscribers are not counted in the promo subscriber total, and are the “revenue generators” and back bone of the company.  Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media, which owns 40% of Sirius XM from its Liberty Capital tracker (Nasdaq:LCAPA), has raved about this core of loyal subscribers as why he is so bullish the business model of Sirius XM Radio.  Greg Maffei has stated that he expects Sirius XM to be “very profitable”.

This first glimpse at Sirius XM numbers is a good sign that the February Sirius XM conference call will be a good one.  I am expecting a February 4th conference call, but no offical word has yet been given.

Check back on Monday for my quartly earnings estimate for Sirius XM.