EchoStar Revenue Jumps

The company's satellite TV service adds 360,000 subscribers during the quarter.

Author:: TSC Staff
Publish date:: May 6, 2004 9:56 AM EDT

Updated from 8:46 a.m. EDT

Things are looking up at

EchoStar

, even if its bottom line went down in the first quarter.

The satellite TV company Thursday said it had a net loss of $43 million, or 9 cents a share, compared with a profit of $58 million, or 12 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

But on the positive side, its DISH satellite television service had approximately 360,000 net new subscribers during the first quarter, giving it a total of about 9.785 million subscribers as of March 31.

Revenue rose 16% to $1.58 billion from $1.36 billion a year ago.

The loss for the quarter includes a $78 million charge associated with the early redemption of debt.

Excluding items, analysts were expecting net income of $77.7 million, or 15 cents a share, on revenue of $1.55 billion, according to Thomson First Call.

Shares slipped $1 in early action Thursday to $33.29.