DTH sales to cross Rs 1K cr soon

With the addition of 2 lakh subscribers every month, private direct-to-home (DTH) service operators Dish TV and Tata Sky may cross Rs 650 crore (Rs 6.5 billion) in revenues for financial year 2007-08, a three-fold increase from 2006-07.

Last financial year, the two operators together generated Rs 188 crore (Rs 1.88 billion) revenues on a subscriber-base of 2.2 million.

The total DTH subscriber-base this financial year is expected to cross the 5-million mark with Essel Group's Dish TV likely to have 3 million and Tata Sky 2 million subscribers.

Dish TV, the country's largest DTH operator, is expected to generate Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion) revenues in 2007-08, according to a senior Dish TV executive.

In 2006-07, the subscriber-base stood at 2.2 million. Dish had 1.7 million of these subscribers and the rest lay with Tata Sky. Big TV and Bharti - two other DTH players - are expected to launch their services soon.

According to analysts, the revenues of private DTH operators may cross the Rs 1,000-crore (Rs 10 billion) mark in 2008-09 with a total subscriber-base of 8

million. Tata Sky, the country's second private DTH operator, launched services in August, 2006.

For 2008-09, the analyst felt that among five private DTH operators, 3.5 million subscribers would be added.

"Even though the revenues of these DTH companies are slated to go up, they have huge costs to cover because of the 25-35 per cent discount offered on set-top boxes and other hardware equipment. For a DTH company to make money, the subscriber-base should be around 8-10 million," said another analyst.

According to DTH licensing norms, all private DTH operators have to pay 10 per cent of their revenues as the licence fees for operating the service.

In 2006-07, the ministry of information and broadcasting collected Rs 18.84 crore (Rs 188.4 million) as licence fees from Dish TV and Tata Sky.