'India is the market for the future'

Q&A/ Jacques Dunogue

Part of the top team at the international video solutions company Thomson, Jacques Dunogue, senior executive vice-president (Systems Division), is on his maiden visit to India.

With the country's media and entertainment industry on a roll, Dunogue is here to ensure that the targets set for developing intelligent set top boxes at its R&D facility in Bangalore are met. Dunogue spoke to Shuchi Bansal on the potential that India's booming entertainment TV market offers.

What's your prediction on India's entertainment market?

India is one of the biggest markets in content creation. For Thomson's systems division in India, the DTH market is growing very rapidly. It is a big market for set top boxes and the video encoders, that is, compression technology.

But India will now move towards High Definition (HD) TV and PVRs (personal video recorders) as people are buying plasma TVs. This market will grow as the technology is not being pushed by the companies but it's driven by the consumer.

Is HDTV popular in developed markets?

Of our total shipment in Europe and the US, HDTV constitues about 30 per cent. If I look at the US market, there are a number of sports, movies and, increasingly, news channels, which are in high definition.

How important is the Indian market for Thomson?

Today, India is small for us in terms of sales. But it is the market for the future. We are already growing more than 100 per cent and hiring another 150 engineers for the R&D centre.

Does the R&D centre cater to India alone?

No. The R&D is for the global market. Here we create software solutions for next generation set top boxes, like high definition PVR set top boxes, which are rather intelligent.

How intelligent?

They are networked. For instance, if you have a movie on your set top box you might want to access it on your television or even your mobile phone screen.

Likewise, when you are not home you might want to record your favourite sports show on your personal video recorder, say, from your laptop.

We may even produce a screen tablet, that is, just a small screen that you may carry with you anywhere but it is connected to the set top box.

Any comments on IPTV's progress in India?

India's IPTV growth is slow. But it's not dissimilar to what happened in Europe 10 years ago.

How did Europe manage that?

The European Commission imposed a rather strict order on incumbent monopolies to share their networks with others. This is not to say that what worked for Europe will work for India. But that made the market pick up. Then, there was very dynamic competition on the triple play offerings.

In the US, on the other hand, there is very little unbundling but there is strong competition between cable operators and the telecom operators.

How do DTH players compete in the international market?

India has an interesting situation where everybody has the right to the same content. So the players are in the race to engage as many customers as possible. Volume is good in the beginning but they have to differentiate and launch new services.

Which other technology platform will work in India?

Mobile TV. It is very strong here. It's not picking up as fast as in Europe because of regulatory issues. But India has a chance.