New York, NY–SIRIUS Satellite Radio has signed deals to become a factory-installed option on new lines from Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, and Land Rover. XM–SIRIUSs rival for market penetration–has inked a deal with Hyundai America making Hyundai the first automaker to launch XM as standard, factory-installed equipment in every vehicle across its entire model line-up.
S&P Equity Research stated, “We believe XM’s gain could deal a crucial loss to rival Sirius Satellite Radio since we viewed Hyundai as one of several key ‘not committed’ OEMs, after XM signed up General Motors, Honda and Toyota, while Sirius allied with Ford Motor, DaimlerChrysler, Nissan and BMW.”
The factory-installed SIRIUS option in the 2006 Mercedes-Benz M-Class Sports Utility vehicle will be available beginning next month. Mercedes-Benz also plans to offer SIRIUS as a factory-installed option on six additional 2006 model year vehicles later this year and four 2007 model year vehicles next year.
Jaguar plans to offer SIRIUS as a dealer-installed accessory in the following 2005 model year vehicle lines beginning this May: 2005 X-Type, 2005 X-Type Wagon, 2005 S-Type and the 2005 XJ Sedan. It is additionally planning to offer SIRIUS as a port-installed option on the same models for the 2006 model year in the near future.
Land Rover plans to offer SIRIUS on the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport in July of this year. Both vehicles will come with factory-installed head units that display artist, song title and category when playing SIRIUS. Additionally, Range Rover will feature a touch-screen interface.
“SIRIUS commercial-free music and wide variety of talk programming, combined with engineering from Mercedes-Benz, gives you the ultimate in SUV luxury,” said Michelle Cervantes, vice-president of marketing for Mercedes-Benz USA.
