XM Invests In Competitor

Florida Avenue-based XM Radio announced yesterday that it will invest a cool $25 million in one of its overseas competitors.

WorldSpace Corp., which is a privately satellite radio provider also based in the District, primarily focuses on West Africa, the Middle East, and India. It currently only has about 68,000 subscribers, compared to XM’s over 4.4 million U.S. customers.

One analyst told the Post, “The bottom line is what XM is trying to do is not only be the leader in North America but to evangelize the satellite radio industry. They’re saying, ‘We could be like the [satellite television] industry. Satellite radio could be a world service.’”

Much like the rest of the industry, Worldspace is far from secure financially.

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