Source: The Economic Times
CHENNAI: Sun Direct, an 80:20 joint venture between the Maran family (grand- nephews of TN CM Karunanidhi) the Astro Group of Malaysia, plans to invest $250-300 crore in the next four to five years in penetrating the DTH market. Currently being fully funded by its shareholders, the direct-to-home (DTH) service provider is open to raising money from the stock market when things
improve, the company COO Tony D’Silva told ET.
Although he ruled out any plan to go public this year, he indicated next fiscal could be a possibility. The company had toyed with the idea of raising debt a few months ago, but has ruled it out now. "We are 100% debt-free at the moment. We can hope for a turnaround, once we have a critical mass of around 8-10 million subscribers. We hope to break even in the next five years," Mr D’Silva said.
Sun Direct expects a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore this year and Rs 1,500 crore next fiscal. With over 4.3 million subscribers at present, Sun Direct is tied at second spot with Tata Sky, next only to first-mover Dish TV that has a subscriber base of around 5.5 million. The southern major hopes to touch 6 million customers by the end of the fiscal and have 10 million on board in the next five years.
While competitors prefer to promote their value-added offerings like recording live TV and ordering pizza through the set-top-box, Sun Direct firmly believes in getting a big subscriber base first before venturing into the VAS territory. Nearly 70% of Sun Direct’s subscribers are from semi-urban and rural areas.
"Marketshare growth is our first priority. Quality and service is not a problem. But competition with cable operators on price-points is the biggest challenge," Mr D’Silva said, adding : "The regulations should facilitate equity in pricing, be it cable operators, CAS or DTH. If the industry has to grow like the telecom sector, there has to be a level playing field. It is then that the DTH segment will get its inflex point and start growing rapidly."
There are 80 million cable and satellite (C&S) homes in the country, while the number of DTH connections stands at 14-15 million. Sun Direct currently has an average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 100 and added high definition (HD) TV services this April. "We will start offering value add-ons in the next six months, but only to our HD subscribers. At the lower end, it is not an easy task to get consumers to shift to DTH from cable TV," Mr D’Silva said.
It offers a Tamil and Telugu movie channel apart from National Geographic in the HD format, which is a premium offering. An HD subscriber has to shell out Rs 14,000 for the set-top-box, unlike the regular subscriber who gets it free of cost.
CHENNAI: Sun Direct, an 80:20 joint venture between the Maran family (grand- nephews of TN CM Karunanidhi) the Astro Group of Malaysia, plans to invest $250-300 crore in the next four to five years in penetrating the DTH market. Currently being fully funded by its shareholders, the direct-to-home (DTH) service provider is open to raising money from the stock market when things
improve, the company COO Tony D’Silva told ET.Although he ruled out any plan to go public this year, he indicated next fiscal could be a possibility. The company had toyed with the idea of raising debt a few months ago, but has ruled it out now. "We are 100% debt-free at the moment. We can hope for a turnaround, once we have a critical mass of around 8-10 million subscribers. We hope to break even in the next five years," Mr D’Silva said.
Sun Direct expects a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore this year and Rs 1,500 crore next fiscal. With over 4.3 million subscribers at present, Sun Direct is tied at second spot with Tata Sky, next only to first-mover Dish TV that has a subscriber base of around 5.5 million. The southern major hopes to touch 6 million customers by the end of the fiscal and have 10 million on board in the next five years.
While competitors prefer to promote their value-added offerings like recording live TV and ordering pizza through the set-top-box, Sun Direct firmly believes in getting a big subscriber base first before venturing into the VAS territory. Nearly 70% of Sun Direct’s subscribers are from semi-urban and rural areas.
"Marketshare growth is our first priority. Quality and service is not a problem. But competition with cable operators on price-points is the biggest challenge," Mr D’Silva said, adding : "The regulations should facilitate equity in pricing, be it cable operators, CAS or DTH. If the industry has to grow like the telecom sector, there has to be a level playing field. It is then that the DTH segment will get its inflex point and start growing rapidly."
There are 80 million cable and satellite (C&S) homes in the country, while the number of DTH connections stands at 14-15 million. Sun Direct currently has an average revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 100 and added high definition (HD) TV services this April. "We will start offering value add-ons in the next six months, but only to our HD subscribers. At the lower end, it is not an easy task to get consumers to shift to DTH from cable TV," Mr D’Silva said.
It offers a Tamil and Telugu movie channel apart from National Geographic in the HD format, which is a premium offering. An HD subscriber has to shell out Rs 14,000 for the set-top-box, unlike the regular subscriber who gets it free of cost.
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2 comments :
SUN is SUN and no one can deny it. Believe it or not from the day one of installation I am seeing channel 100 only and nothing else and even my family insist me to watch it. You don't watch or like to watch other channels. Minute to minute hour to hour it thrills to watch channel 100 with so much of curiosity and it still continues to me today , I dont think this kind of entertainment is available in other dth's as most of them don't have channel 100. we watch the channel round the clock and the entertainment is guaranteed. forget to mention For the readers who don't know what channel 100 is it is SUN and we were watching "E16-4 Service is currently Scrambled" for all these days from the day one of installation .What an entertainment !!! sorry got to go need to call customer care and look for an hour excitement. enjoy guys with sun dth!!!!
-sriram
waste ra idhu hathway is the best
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