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Worldspace Q3 Losses At $36.7 Million; Losing Subs In India

By Nikhil Pahwa - Tue 13 Nov 2007 02:15 AM PST

Not a good quarter for Worldspace, (NSDQ: WRSP) as the satellite radio broadcaster saw a churn of 8717 subscribers in India in Q3 (ending September 30), primarily as a result of reduced marketing. Rapid TV News reports that the company is running out of cash, with a burn rate of around $7 million a month. Revenues were $3.3 million for the quarter, with net losses at $36.7 million. Worldspace CEO Noah Samara appears to be banking on a repeater licence to enable them to provide service to automobiles, and until then, is cutting spends on marketing in India. The company is apparently switching focus from India to markets like France, Germany and Spain for terrestrial services. Other markets include Turkey, the Middle East, China and South Africa. But, as of September 30th, it was down to its last $28 million in cash, and is going to be in need of fresh investment to survive.

Posted in: Earnings, Music



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4 Responses:
  • From binny Tue 13 Nov 2007 08:08 AM

    Worldspace would be joining the deadpool soon. There are no two ways about it.  I guess they placed their bet on India too early. If they had started now they could have got better subscription rates and more advertising revenue.

  • From Sarathy Tue 13 Nov 2007 09:14 PM

    They have a funny marketing message, In tamilnadu, their ad tells about something like “get access to hindi channels”,
    Who would be interested in an hindi channel in tamilnadu.,
    They should have first launched their services in North India and after that should have shifted to south india.,
    Also who would pay 300+ for a radio subscription?

  • From pteeri Wed 26 Mar 2008 04:11 AM

    world space is getting murkier thing just to mislead customer like what they did in airline ticktes .
    just making fool of indian customers , only management interested in making their pockets full

  • From Rony Antony Sat 21 Jun 2008 08:50 AM

    I am a die-hard fan of Worldspace.  The company provides a service that appeals to all music lovers. I personally feel that the price is low and it can actually get better subscriptions if it just manages a higher and focused marketing spend. 
    The service quality definately needs to improve, but not all is lost. 
    And just to respond to ‘pteeri’ the whole concept of business is to make money.  Else we should call it charity.

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