Dish TV India's Numbers Pick Up In March 2013 Quarter

Dish TV India, among the country’s leading DTH operators, has reduced its losses to Rs 43.62 crore for Q4FY13 from that of Rs 49.2 crore seen during the same period last year. However, this is the second consecutive quarter in which the company has remained in the red after September 2013 (where it turned black). Its losses have declined on a sequential basis too. The topline of the company has seen a growth of 7.54% to Rs 555.40 crore compared to Rs 516.44 crore in the same quarter last year.

On the EBITDA front, the company has posted a growth of 6.46% and this has come in at Rs 120.04 crore for Q4FY13 as against Rs 112.76 crore for Q4FY12. The margins remained almost flat at 21.61%, witnessing a decline of a mere 22 basis points on a YoY basis. However, the management has said that going forward in FY14 the margins are likely to improve, though this has not been quantified.

Coming to the operations front, the company’s Average Revenues Per User (ARPUs) came down slightly to Rs 157 during the quarter as against Rs 160 for Q4FY12. In the quarter, the company added 0.2 million net subscribers, achieving a cumulative total of 10.7 million net subscribers at the close of the period. The Subscription revenues for the fourth quarter stood at Rs 500 crore, marking a growth of 15.3% from the corresponding period last fiscal. What is noteworthy here is that the Subscriber Acquisition Cost (SAC) has come down from Rs 2201 to Rs 1996 on a sequential basis. The management has also mentioned that higher win backs brought the average churn for the quarter to a low of 0.8% per month compared to 1% in the previous quarter.

Dish TV added 5 new HD channels with effect from April, 2013. With this addition, Dish TV offers the highest number of 25 HD channels and 17 HD services on its platform. The company’s expenses went up by 5.1% on a YoY basis, mainly due to the rise in content cost. However, this remained well within the guided range of 10%-12%. Marketing and other related expenses were within the budget in the fourth quarter due to investments in the previous quarter to capitalise on the digitisation opportunity.