Dish TV draws Rs 500 crore expansion plan

New Delhi-based direct-to-home (DTH) player Dish TV plans to pump in Rs 500 crore as part of its expansion plans over the next 18 months.

The Essel group-promoted company is looking at expanding its infrastructure, satellite capacity, sales and distribution network and content, among others.

Arun K Kapoor, chief executive officer, Dish TV, said the company was in expansion mode and was in the process of tripling its sales and distribution network across the country. The company also plans to get more channels on the DTH platform.

Noting that the key differentiators in DTH services would be sales and distribution infrastructure and content or value-added services, Kapoor said the company was actively looking at adding niche channels like education, housekeeping, pets and gardening, among others.

It plans to work with some companies to develop relevant content for these channels.

"I don't see subscription prices coming down, but prices of set-top boxes will come down. Growth of business will depend on lower hardware prices and more valued-added services because the subscription prices are already the lowest in India, he said, adding that per box prices had come down to about Rs 3,300 from Rs 10,000 during the beginning of last year.

India is the lowest priced CAS (conditional access system) market in the world. The average price in India is $4-$5 per month as against world average price of $30, he said.

The total DTH penetration in the country today is 3.5 million, which includes 1.7 million subscribers for Dish TV, 2.5-3 lakh for Tata Sky and the rest from Doordarshan's DTH services. By 2015, this is expected to grow to 30 million from the present 3.5 million.

Dish TV expects to increase the subscriber base to 2.5 million by the end of this fiscal from the present 1.7 million subscribers.

While Dish TV has focussed primarily on rural and semi-urban areas, it is now eyeing metros with a concentrated strategy, and expects exponential growth through valued-added services.

Last year, about 65 per cent of its business came from rural areas while the rest came from the top 50 cities.

Over the last three months, we have added a bouquet of channels to offer to consumers in leading cities and we expect exponential growth in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata markets with CAS is set take off from January 1, 2007 in these markets, he said.

Chennai, with a 80 per cent Tamil speaking population, seems to be a tough market for the company and boasts of a higher number of free-to-air channels.

"No market has such a polarised population and Chennai is challenging market to achieve explosive growth. However, we see decent growth here," he added.