Videocon DTH revenues up 33%
June 4, 2015
By Chris Forrester
Indian DTH operator Videocon d2h, already claiming market leadership in the country, reported full year to March 31st revenues up an impressive 32.5 per cent to Indian Rupees 23.38 billion, and subs revenues up 38.3 per cent, and each contributing to an overall EBITDA growth of 55.3 per cent to INR 6.09 billion ($97.3 million).
Videocon d2h says it has retained India’s market leadership for 4 consecutive years based on gross and net subscriber additions, including gross additions for 2015 of 2.64 million (and net adds up 1.74 million). It closed the year with 10.18 million net subscribers, with Churn at 0.8 per cent per month.
Speaking on the growth outlook for the DTH sector, Anil Khera, CEO of Videocon d2h, said “The pay TV segment in India is positioned for extraordinary growth over the next few years with millions of new TV homes being created on account of strong economic outlook in India as well as the Government of India’s initiative to roll out its digitalisation mandate across the country. We believe that 90-100 million homes will be making the switch to digital platforms which will be available to the DTH and digital cable operators. We are well positioned to benefit from this and we believe we will take the largest share of this opportunity, as we have in the past. With strong economic growth outlook for India, overall media sector is expected to grow in the years to come. We believe this will help grow ARPU, TV penetration and increase HD uptake leading to stronger revenue growth for pay TV in general and Videocon d2h in particular.”
Videocon d2h has about 20 per cent of India’s DTH market. The company is also seeing a pick-up in its HD subscriber base. In Fiscal 2015, almost 30 per cent of incremental net subscribers opted for the HD service. The company’s HD subscriber base now represent almost 10 per cent of the total net subscriber base, up from 5 per cent in Fiscal 2014. The Company expects HD penetration to increase in the coming fiscal year, with an attendant impact on ARPU.