The company gained 67,000 net U.S. subscribers in the 2012 third quarter, an expected decline compared with the 2011 third quarter numbers due to the saturation in the U.S. pay-TV market and programming disputes causing a higher churn. However, DirecTV’s subscriber performance was better than that of its competitor Dish Network, which lost 19,000 net subscribers during its 2012 third quarter.

DirecTV has been experiencing fast growth in Latin America as well, adding 543,000 net subscribers in Latin America, excluding Sky Mexico, in the 2012 third quarter. DirectTV’s gross subscriber additions were up 13 percent with close to 1.08 million. Net subscribers were down slightly, resulting from a higher churn rate due to the increased penetration of middle market products, especially in Brazil.