Sirius XM iPhone App Surpasses One Million Downloads, 37,000 Negative Reviews
by John Paczkowski
Posted on July 6, 2009 at 6:58 AM PT
Despite some glaring omissions in its channel lineup, Sirius XM’s new iPhone app has earned considerable traction in Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes App Store. It was downloaded more than one million times in the first two weeks it was available–this despite the fact that the app doesn’t include access to Howard Stern, the personality Sirius (SIRI) often claims is responsible for driving more subscriptions than any other.
“Reaching more than 1 million downloads so quickly is a strong testament to our world-class programming and Sirius XM’s instant brand recognition,” Scott Greenstein, president and chief content officer, said in a release trumpeting the milestone. “Our goal is to give people access to the best audio entertainment wherever they go with what we think is the best music and audio entertainment application available on the App Store.”
The app, which debuted on June 18, quickly became the top free offering in the the App Store’s music category and has held that spot for some time now. So it’s certainly one of the more popular music apps available. That said, it’s also one of the most poorly rated. Sirius XM’s app has an average rating of just two stars out of a possible five. Of its 56,952 user reviews, just 8,822 give it five stars. But 37,818 rate it a single star. And most of those do so citing Stern’s absence as the reason. So while it’s true that Sirius XM Premium Online is the the top free app in the music category, it’s also seems to be its leading disappointment. Makes you wonder how many of those one million downloads were deleted, either after the user noticed Stern’s absence or the $2.99/month subscription fee.
