Thursday, March 28, 2013

Sunny Side up for DTH Firms

India’s DTH Industry is Making a Bold Gambit to take off into Profit zone on The Back of Growing Popularity for High-Definition and value-added Services.

Decades ago, when celebrated American author and critic John Mason Brown spoke about television being chewing gum for the eyes, the visual medium was still years away from efflorescence. Today, as the total number of digital TV households worldwide fast approaches the 1-billion mark, representing a penetration rate of 65%, those words have even found global utterance.

According to UK-based research and forecasting agency Informa Telecoms & Media, which delivers strategic insight on the display industry based on global market data and primary research, more than 401-million digital TV homes are expected to be added between the end of 2010 and the end of 2015, with China contributing a massive 136 million, followed by India with 47 million. A recent report by DisplaySearch, a leading global market research and consulting firm specialising in the $770-billion display supply chain market, says total worldwide television shipments increased 6% from 205 million units in 2009 to 218 million units in 2010.

The boom in TV sales is feeding the demand for high-end LCD and LED television sets by consumers looking for quality TV viewing. Industry observers say that there are about 13 to14 million households buying LCD and LED TVs every year in India. Approximately 700,000 LCD TVs were shipped by brands in India during the month of October alone last year. As television buyers in India gravitate to purchasing more of flat panel displays, direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television has emerged as the choice medium for digital and high-definition (HD)-quality video over other media channels like digital cable networks or IPTV, offering a broader entertainment experience to subscribers. On offer are entertainment, news and lots more options such as searching for job vacancies on TV, looking for prospective marriage partners and choosing travel packages across India that DTH viewers living in even remote nooks & corners of the country can choose from. Proliferation of television channels, viewers increasing sensitivity to quality transmission & programming of their choice and a growing demand for value-added services, have further promoted DTH revolution in the country.

“The need to be entertained, coupled with the diversity of broadcast channels, pay-per-view (PPV) opportunities, gaming and interactive services are the biggest growth drivers for DTH in India,” says a senior executive of a DTH service provider. “The big opportunity for DTH in India”, believes R. C. Venkateish, Chief Executive Officer, Dishtv, “is a virgin market served only by terrestrial broadcaster Doordarshan”. There are still large swathes of cable-starved areas in the country, where people watch only Doordarshan channels. Also, by and large, cable networks in India still run on analog technologies and are not yet digitised. According to analysts, the Indian market has a huge opportunity despite having seven DTH players, including government-owned DD Direct. The total number of households in India is estimated around 232 million, of them only 141 million have TV sets. Of the total number of the households, 116 million have cable and satellite connections of which DTH users count for just 31 million.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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