World Cup may see DTH firms double sales

With the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 round the corner, Direct-To-Home (DTH) players hope to double their subscription revenues in the first year to Rs 90-100 crore by selling around 300,000 connections in March alone.

This will mean an addition of 15 per cent to the existing DTH subscriber base of 25 lakh shared by Dish TV and Tata Sky. Even cable operators in areas under the conditional access system (CAS) in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata are hopeful of a 10-fold increase in subscribers because of the World Cup.

"Currently, 100-200 STBs are sold on a daily basis. However, as the World Cup nears, we expect to sell 1,000 STBs per day," said Ravi Mansukhani, managing director, InNetwork Entertainment.

But DTH players are betting big on the World Cup. Currently the two players are acquiring 5,000-6,000 subscribers a day, with each subscriber spending Rs 3,500-Rs 4,000 for a connection.

To lure subscribers, both Dish TV and Tata Sky have announced special offers. For instance, Dish TV has floated a promotional price of Rs 3,990 valid till March 31, including its Sports Active service which allows for multiple screen viewing.

Likewise, Tata Sky is offering a three-month subscription free to subscribers who buy before April 15. Additionally, the company has signed up Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan for a lucky draw contest in which 50 families will get to watch the finals in Mumbai with the film-star.

"We are optimistic that our rate of new subscriptions will increase two or three-fold," said Anjali Malhotra, vice-president marketing, Dish TV. Dish TV's subscription base stands at 1.8 million.

Even Tata Sky aims to get closer to its first-year target.

Said Vikram Mehra, vice-president, consumer marketing, Tata Sky, "We set ourselves the target of achieving one million subscribers in the first year of our launch. With the World Cup, we feel we may achieve it much ahead of our target."