Satellite Radio Paid Promotional Subscribers

Satellite radio paid promotional subscribers are users whose subscription fee is paid by a third party for a fixed trial period under the issuer's definition.

For SiriusXM, that promotional period typically runs from one to twelve months and is less than three years.

The payer determines the classification

SiriusXM reported 1.582 million paid-promotional subscribers at December 31, 2025.

The category is distinct from self-pay subscribers, where the user generally pays or agrees to pay the subscription fee. An automaker or another third party instead funds the fixed promotional period for a paid-promotional subscriber.

The company also counts certain prepaid vehicles that have been shipped but not yet activated as paid-promotional subscribers. That makes this metric partly a distribution-funnel measure rather than a simple count of people actively paying SiriusXM themselves.

Promotional and self-pay counts should not be blended analytically

At year-end 2025, paid-promotional subscribers represented 1.582 million of SiriusXM's 32.927 million ending subscribers, while self-pay subscribers represented 31.345 million.

Both populations contribute to the reported subscriber base, but their payment status, conversion path, and retention economics differ.

The category helps frame future conversion opportunity

Paid-promotional subscribers can feed the self-pay funnel when trials convert, but the ending promotional count is not itself a conversion rate. In 2025, paid-promotional net additions were only positive 2,000 even though the company had more than 1.5 million such subscribers at year-end.

Use the metric with vehicle distribution, self-pay additions, and churn rather than assuming every promotional subscriber becomes a recurring self-pay customer.

Primary source: Sirius XM Holdings 2025 Form 10-K.

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