NEW DELHI, Oct 6:
Direct-to-home operator TataSky is expecting 30 per cent increase in its subscriber base by next year on account of roll-out of third phase of digitisation by the government and enhanced services and number of channels.
“With Phase-III of digitisation set to roll out next year, increased broadband leading to more channels, enhanced services, greater accessibility and exciting new content, we are extremely buoyant about the coming months and are looking to grow our subscriber base by almost 30 per cent,” Tata Sky CEO Harit Nagpal told.
“Phase-II of digitisation has benefited us hugely,” he added.
TataSky, a 80:20 JV between Tata group and media major STAR, said that as of April 2013, it had a total subscriber base of 11.5 million.
After the completion of Phase I and II of digitalisation of cable sector, the government is now pushing for its implementation in all other urban areas (municipal corporations/ municipalities) under Phase-III of the drive, which would be completed by September 2014.
Cable TV networks across India have been mandated to go digital by December 2014, which entails that cable TV signals may be received only through Set Top Boxes (STB).
However, he also added that DTH operators get a temporary boost while there is forced migration of analogue to digital, however cable operators do get to retain most of their customers due to an existing commercial relationship with them.
Nagpal further informed that Tata Sky is in process of upgrading from MPEG2 to MPEG 4 format.
“This has helped us add over 20 new channels in the last couple of months and the process will continue in the coming months too,” he said adding that Tata Sky expects to spend around Rs 900 crore on the migration of its MPEG2 boxes to the MPEG4 format.
Moreover, TataSky has also claimed to neutralise the effect of depreciation of the India rupee against US dollar on the STB by negotiating rates with its suppliers.
“Our rising scale has enabled us to negotiate better rates with our suppliers which neutralise the impact of a weakening rupee. We wish we could have passed on the benefit to the customer however, we are happy that we do not have to increase customer prices.
“On the contrary current prices are lower than what they were a month ago by about 10 per cent and we have done that to stimulate consumer demand in the forthcoming festival season,” Nagpal said. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel