DirecTV Announces Record September Customer Growth
Year-to-Date Growth Up 44 Percent DirecTV Inc., a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp., Thursday announced its high-power DirecTVÆ digital satellite television service acquired 160,000 net new customers in September. DirecTV's September additions represent a record for that month and a 32 percent increase in net customer acquisitions over September 1998. An additional 77,000 customers were transitioned to DirecTV from medium-power PrimeStar By DirecTV last month. Through the first nine months of 1999, DirecTV acquired 1,091,000 net new high-power customers, a 44 percent increase over the same year-ago period. DirecTV now has more than 7.6 million customers, including customers subscribing to the medium-power PrimeStar By DirecTV service. DirecTV continued to aggressively transition PrimeStar By DirecTV customers to high-power service in September. The 77,000 customers transitioned to high-power service in September - which are not included in the 160,000 net new customers acquired by DirecTV last month - brings the total number of conversions to more than 229,000. At the end of September, PrimeStar By DirecTV had approximately 1.8 million customers subscribing to its medium-power service. DirecTV is a registered trademark of DirecTV Inc., a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp. The earnings of Hughes are used to calculate the earnings per share attributable to GMH (NYSE symbol) common stock. Visit DirecTV on the World Wide Web at www.directv.com. For more information, contact DirecTV Inc., Jeff Torkelson, 310 535 5062.