Dish TV India Limited (Dishtv) (BSE: 532839, NSE: DISHTV) today reported third quarter fiscal 2014 standalone operating revenues of Rs. 6,128 million, recording 9.9% growth over the corresponding  period last fiscal. Subscription revenues of Rs.
5,529  million  recorded  a  growth  of  11.9%  over  the  corresponding  quarter  last  fiscal.  A translational loss, due to foreign exchange fluctuation, of Rs. 70 million and an exchange rate adjustment demand for transponder payments amounting to Rs. 54 million negatively impacted EBITDA of Rs. 1,355 million. Net Loss for the quarter stood at Rs. 382 million compared to Rs.
449 million in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

The Board of Directors in its meeting held today, has approved and taken on record the unaudited standalone results of Dish TV for the quarter ended on December 31, 2013.

Mr. Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Dish TV India Limited, said, “Global economic prospects seem to be improving with a faster pace of expansion predicted for 2014 going all the way up to 2016. For the Indian economy too, the worst seems to have come to an end and things should gradually start looking better from hereon with a bumper Kharif crop harvest expected to further boost sentiments.”

“The Indian television distribution sector is not completely out of the woods though. With more than 14 months passed post the rollout of Phase I of mandatory digitization, billing and other critical requirements have not yet been fully put in place by majority of the MSOs. Though far too delayed, we remain optimistic about the completion of digitization in its true sense,” he added.

“Sticking to fundamentals, Dish TV continued to pursue its strategy of self-funded profitable growth. The third quarter was witness to Dish TV announcing some industry leading initiatives that look promising enough to weed out inefficiencies from the television industry,” said Mr. Chandra.

Mr. Jawahar Goel, Managing Director, Dish TV, said, “It was an eventful quarter for Dish TV with the rollout of the first of its kind ‘On Request Ala-carte’ (ORA) scheme on its platform. While a reasonable content cost payout is well adopted, an unjustified increase in payment for content can jeopardize the existence of DTH in the country. With DTH continuing to contribute bulk of the subscription revenue to the broadcasters, it is high time they get started on collecting their share of revenue from close to 5,000 cable companies apart from rationalization of carriage fee payout.”

“Further to the ‘ORA’ scheme, we successfully completed the migration of 22 channels of a content  aggregator  from  respective  packages  to  a-la-carte  with  effect  from  January  1. Henceforth  these  channels  would  be  available,  without  any  extra  charge,  to  only  those subscribers who specifically request for them. The current trend of demand for these channels makes us confident of significantly rationalizing our payout for content going forward,” he added.

“Dish TV added 220 thousand net subscribers in the quarter and continued to maintain its leadership share. Notwithstanding the festival period, the overall additions for the industry remained  muted  largely  due  to  the  sluggishness   in  the  economy  as  compared  to  the corresponding period last fiscal,” said Mr. Goel.

“A relatively strong currency resulted in a translational loss, due to foreign exchange fluctuation, of Rs. 70 million on foreign deposits. This along with an exchange rate adjustment demand worth Rs. 54 million, for transponder payments, negatively impacted the EBITDA for the quarter. In line with expectation, higher promotional and marketing expenses and a sports driven content payout also put pressure on the EBITDA of Rs. 1,355 million. ARPU for the quarter increased to Rs. 166 from Rs. 165 in the previous quarter. Subscriber Acquisition Cost (SAC) was recorded at Rs. 1,889 while churn was maintained at 0.6% p.m. Dish TV paid off debt to the tune of Rs. 5,631 million in the nine months ended December 31, 2013,” Mr. Goel added.

“Our Sri Lanka subsidiary project is on track and test signals are planned for February end. On the digitization front, TRAI and the government have already started the process for implementation of DAS in Phase III and IV which should give us a significant opportunity going forward. We are confident of acquiring industry leading incremental share while still keeping a tab on the subsidy per box. We have planned a specific differentiated strategy to address these markets, details of which will be unveiled in the next quarter,” he added.

Dish TV India Limited continues to be the largest DTH Company in India and the Asia Pacific region and is one of the largest DTH platforms in the World.

Condensed statement of operations
The table below shows the condensed statement of operations for Dish TV India Limited for the third quarter ended December ‘13 compared to the quarter ended September ‘13:

Key movements:

Expenditure

Dish TV’s primary expenses include cost of goods and services, personnel cost, administrative cost, advertisement expenses and selling expenses. The table below shows each as a percentage of total revenue: