China Digital Q4 revenues rise
March 12, 2015
By Chris Forrester
China Digital TV, which supplies conditional access services to more than 400 Chinese cable systems, reported revenues up 12.8 per cent to $29.2 million for its Q4, although revenues for the year to December 31st were down 6.5 per cent to $81.5 million.
China Digital TV shipped 5.15 million ‘Smart’ cards during the quarter-year (up from 4.95 million in the same period in 2013), and 15.6 million (down from 17 million) during 2014 as a whole.
“We are pleased to report a solid performance in the fourth quarter of 2014, with smart card shipments and net revenue both exceeding our guidance,” said Lu Zengxiang, China Digital TV’s acting CEO. “Our traditional smart card business continued to see steady demand from our major customers, including those in Sichuan, Jiangsu,Jiangxi, Guangdong and Shandong. In the fourth quarter, China Digital TV maintained a leading position in the Chinese smart card market with a 53% share.”
Lu continued, “In addition to the traditional CA market, we continued to expand our value-added services business in this quarter. We saw further developments in our strategic cloud computing partnership with Beijing Gehua CATV Network Co., Ltd, which grew from 10,000 streams in testing in the third quarter of 2014 to 20,000 streams in the fourth quarter of 2014. We believe the partnership will demonstrate the value of such collaboration to cable operators across China. Our overseas business also saw steady growth. Besides Southeast Asia, where we have made good progress in recent quarters, we will continue to explore opportunities in other emerging markets with diversified businesses.”
He added that 490,000 cards were shipped outside China in Q4 (down 17 per cent). The majority of our overseas shipments in Q4 came from an initial shipment of 300,000 smart cards to Venezuela, which were part of a total order of 900,000 from that country. “We expect the remaining 600,000 to be shipped to Venezuela in 2015. For the full year of 2014, total overseas smart card shipments reached 1.04 million. We continued to see solid demand from South and Southeast Asia, including Taiwan, India, and Myanmar.”
Yue Qian, China Digital TV’s acting CFO, commented, “In the fourth quarter, strong top-line growth allowed us to maintain a high gross margin, and effective execution helped us maintain stable operating expenses and increase operating margins compared with the same period in 2013. We will continue to evaluate the best ways to manage our operating expenses and improve overall efficiency.”