Dish TV posts Q1 net loss of Rs 631.8 million
MUMBAI: Dish TV has posted a fiscal first-quarter net loss of Rs 631.8 million compared to a loss of Rs 692.05 million a year ago.
The first-quarter loss has increased from the previous three months in which the leading DTH service provider had posted a loss of Rs 598 million.
Amassing 0.64 million subscribers during the quarter to take its total base to 7.5 million (net subscriber base 6.17 million), Dish TV has reported operating revenues of Rs 3.11 billion, up 23.4 per cent from the earlier year. The income in the trailing quarter was Rs 3.04 billion.
Average subscriber acquisition cost (SAC) stood at Rs 2,147, while ARPU (average revenue per user) was at Rs 139.
Dish TV's expenditure during the quarter was Rs 2.72 billion, significantly lower then Rs 3.01 billion in the year ago period, while it was Rs 2.68 billion in the trailing quarter.
Dish TV chairman Subhash Chandra said, The category recorded a phenomenal 2.5 million subscriber additions in the first quarter of the current fiscal, moving closer to becoming the largest DTH market in the world in terms of subscribers. Dish TV maintained its leadership position while garnering an all time high incremental market share of 25 per cent.
Dish TV MD Jawahar Goel added, "The DTH market in India witnessed sustained expansion through the first quarter of the current fiscal with the category recording around 25 per cent YoY growth. Dish TV outperformed the market by recording a strong growth of 46 per cent. Growth in subscriber numbers triggered operating leverage thus significantly reducing content cost as a percentage of revenues to a new low of 40 per cent.
Dish TV will continue to endeavour towards strengthening its ARPU levels.
"We believe that services like High Definition (HD), Video on Demand and Value Added Services (VAS) are instrumental in achieving that in the long term. However, in the current regime of subsidizing content cost, any spike in activations may exert a temporary pressure on the overall ARPU. The ARPU for the quarter was marginally up at Rs 139, said Goel.
During the quarter, Dish TV launched its HD service Dish Tru HD and also added eight new channels belonging to varied genres like infotainment, sports, Hindi movies, GEC and devotional.
Meanwhile, it said that the FIFA World Cup 2010 turned out to be a big draw and resulted in increased DTH activations on a pan-India basis. The activations for the month of June were an approximate 240,000, recording a 83 per cent growth over the earlier year.
