Direct to Home television services operator, Dish TV‘s subscriber growth rate seems to be falling: only 0.16 million subscriber additions in the quarter ending September 30, 2013 (Q2-FY14) making it the lowest in the past 24 quarters.
It had registered 0.2 million subscribers in the previous two quarters and 0.5 million subscribers in the same quarter last year. Overall, the company has 11 million net subscribers at present.
To make up for the falling number of new subscribers, Dish TV had launched an over-the-top (OTT) streaming application DishOnline for Android and iOS, in collaboration with Zee New Media’s Ditto TV. DishOnline provides Live TV, Movies, TV shows and videos. The company hopes that ‘DishOnline’ service would have a following amongst the tech-savvy viewers in the country and would help increase subscriber stickiness on the platform.
Highlights
– Subscriber Acquisition Cost (SAC) has increased slightly to Rs 1,849 from Rs 1,828 in the previous quarter. However it has declined significantly from Rs 2,232 from the same quarter last year.
– Average Revenue Per User: The average revenue per user (ARPU) for DishTV has plateaued at Rs 165.
– Subscription revenues for the quarter was at Rs 537 crore, a growth of 13.6% over the corresponding quarter last quarter.
– Its EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) for the quarter was at Rs 147.9 crore. The EBITDA margin recovered sharply to reach 25% despite forex hit.
– Churn maintained at 0.6%
Discussing the results, Jawahar Goel, Managing Director, Dish TV blamed the reduction in new subscribers on desperate attempts by other DTH platforms to undercut prices. He said that the company chose not to jump on that bandwagon.
Dish TV also plans to acquire additional transponder capacity to beef up its existing bandwidth in this fiscal. Goel said – “We intend to leverage the additional capacity to distribute localized content as well as strengthen carriage revenues. Moreover, with more than 60% of the broadcasting industries subscription revenues coming from DTH alone, it is now time that the favourable terms, including carriage fees, extended to the MSO’s by the broadcasters be either revisited or offered to DTH platforms as well. This becomes all the more imperative considering that, in a digital environment, cable MSO’s are now almost there in terms of package wise billing in select 2-3 cities of Phase I & II”
Financials
Dish TV reported an operating revenue of Rs 592.6 crore for the quarter, up 2.5% from Rs 578.4 crore reported in the previous quarter. The net loss has reduced to Rs 16 crore from Rs 30.4 crore in the previous quarter and Rs 48.4 crore in the same quarter last year.
Its EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) for the quarter was at Rs 147.9 crore, up from 120 crore in the previous quarter, while the EBITDA margin jumped back to 25% despite a weak rupee. The company is also continuing its work on its overseas venture — Dish TV Lanka (Pvt.) Limited and an announcement on the same is expected in a few months.
Download – Press Release | Financials
