DISH Network profit rises even as subscribers fall

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: iDGi: DISH Network profit rises even as subscribers fall : 77 Square | Jeff Richgels | March 2, 2009 : ------------------------------------------- : : DISH Network Corp. on Monday reported its fourth-quarter profit rose 24 percent despite losing more than 100,000 subscribers and its results fell just short of Wall Street forecasts.DISH earned $217 million, or 48 cents per share, on sales of $2.92 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $175 million, or 39 cents per share, on sales of $2.89 billion a year earlier. : Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected profit of 49 cents per share on sales of $2.96 billion, the Associated Press reported. : The No. 2 satellite TV provider said it lost about 102,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter, leaving the company with 13.68 million subscribers as of Dec. 31. This is a drop of almost 1 percent from the 13.78 million customers it had at the end of 2007. : A poll of five Wall Street analysts had on average forecast DISH to add about 20,000 subscribers, Reuters reported. : The company ended the year with 13.7 million subscribers, down 102,000 from the end of 2007. However, average revenue per user increased to $69.27 from $65.83. : In its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, DISH cited a number of factors for the drop, including the economy, aggressive promotional moves by competitors to get and keep subscribers, competitive marketing and the rise of fiber-based and Internet-based video companies. : DISH warned that these same factors could affect future subscriber additions and subscriber churn -- a measure of how many user quit the service -- which could in turn hurt revenue growth. : For the full year, DISH earned $902.9 million, or $1.98 per share, compared with $756.1 million, or $1.68 per share, in 2007. Revenues rose 5 percent to $11.62 billion.

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