Dish TV posts first net profit since listing

Dish TV India, the country’s top direct-to-home (DTH) service provider, has reported its first net profit since listing in the second quarter at `55.1 crore even as its gears up to benefit from the digitisation of cable signals in the country.

The company has been free cash-flow positive for three consecutive quarters now. Dish TV posted a 10.1% growth in standalone operating revenues for the quarter at Rs533.6 crore.
Operating profit grew 18.3% year on year at Rs155.7 crore, while operating profit margin stood at 29.2%.

The company added 4.77 lakh new subscribers in the second quarter, touching a total 13.9 million gross and 10 million net subscribers.

Subscription revenues for the quarter stood at Rs472.7 crore, recording a growth of 14.6% year on year. The Q2 results include an exceptional gain of Rs76.4 crore.

RC Venkateish, CEO, Dish TV, said the exeception gain in Q2 was a one-time item and an 18 month adjustment (effective April 2011) to comply with the treatment of foreign exchange fluctuation, which was earlier being routed through the P&L.

Jawahar Goel, managing director, Dish TV India, pointed out that the second quarter had taken off sluggishly, largely due to the macro headwinds and price hike at the entry level.

“However, our sound strategy and efficient on-ground execution enabled a pick-up in additions post the first month. Cost line items remained as projected; an expected hike in marketing cost coming in due to additional spends around digitisation. Churn remained at 1% per month despite the package price increase last quarter,” he said.

Despite regular data on steady growth in digital deployment flowing in, on-ground implementation remained lukewarm, said Goel. “However, with the government sending firm signals against extension of the analog sunset date, we continue to target reasonable subscriber uptake going forward.”

Dish TV chairman Subhash Chandra also saw traction going forward. “The digitisation mandate is expected to take the Indian media and entertainment industry to the next level of growth. In this countdown towards digitisation, DTH continues to have an upper edge over cable due to its evolved business systems and processes,” he said.

Fair disclosure: Dish TV India is part of Zee Group,
which runs the DNA