Friday, October 24, 2008

Sun Direct readies for national rollout

Source: The Financial Express

The Maran family-owned leading DTH venture, Sun Direct Pvt Ltd may spend upto Rs 1,150 crore in its national rollout plan this fiscal. Of this, it has roughly spent over Rs 480 crore already. Sun Direct plans to complete its national footprint by the end of this November by launching in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa and the North Eastern states.

Speaking to FE, Tony D’Silva, COO, Sun Direct said, “Our plan to roll out across India should be completed by the end of next month.” When asked about the investment D’Silva revealed that while the advertising and marketing expenditure would be to the tune of Rs 150 crore, the investment that goes into acquiring each subscriber is Rs 4,000 and Sun Direct’s target is to bring 3 million DTH subscribers into its fold by the March-end.

He also added that Sun Direct has more than tripled its subscriber base since last March. While Sun Direct had half a million customers, in its kitty by the end of last fiscal, (all of which hailed from the four southern states and Pondicherry, the region where Sun Direct provided its services then) the latest total tally of subscriber base has reached 1.7 million. That implies, the DTH operator has acquired around 1.2 million customers this financial year and already spent roughly Rs 480 crore on subscriber acquisition. Sun Direct offers a higher compression technology-MPEG 4 which makes its subscriber acquisition more expensive than players who use MPEG 2.

When asked what would be the differentiators of Sun Direct from a crowded DTH market that has two established national players in Dish TV and Tata Sky and has seen two recent launches by telecom giants - Big TV and Airtel Digital D’Silva said, “Our strategy would be the same as it has been in the southern India. We will focus on regional content and keep the cost of the service reasonable,” said D’Silva. Sun Direct gets channels on an a la carte basis and not on a bundled basis so as to maximise the choice for viewers.

Sun Direct attained leadership in south India by innovative packaging - launching four regional basic tiers comprising of over 100 plus channels specific to each southern state (Tamil basic, Telugu basic, Kannada basic and Kerala basic) at the rate of Rs 75 per month and giving away free hardware. Recently, it made a foray into western and some of the northern states.


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