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DirecTV Announces Record October Customer Growth
Year-To-Date Growth Up 42 Percent
DirecTV Inc., a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp., today announced that its high-power DirecTVÆ digital satellite television service acquired 140,000 net new customers in October. DirecTV's October additions represent a record for that month and a 31 percent increase in net customer acquisitions over October 1998. An additional 75,000 customers were transitioned to DirecTV from medium-power PrimeStar By DirecTV last month. Through the first 10 months of 1999, DirecTV acquired 1,231,000 net new high-power customers, a 42 percent increase over the same year-ago period. DirecTV now has approximately 7.8 million customers, including customers subscribing to the medium-power PrimeStar By DirecTV service. DirecTV continued to transition PrimeStar By DirecTV customers to high-power service in October. The 75,000 customers transitioned to high-power service in October - who are not included in the 140,000 net new customers acquired by DirecTV last month - bring the total number of conversions to more than 304,000. At the end of October, PrimeStar By DirecTV had more than 1.6 million customers subscribing to its medium-power service.