'Tapering subscriber acquisitions' for Dish TV India in 4Q 2019

Wednesday, February 12th, 2020
Dish TV India logo

NOIDA, India — Dish TV India Limited (BSE: 532839, NSE: DISHTV, LSE: DTVL) today reported third quarter fiscal 2020 (ended December 31, 2019) consolidated unaudited subscription revenues of Rs. 7,982 million, up 0.8% Q-o-Q and operating revenues of Rs. 8,678 million. EBITDA for the quarter stood at Rs. 5,056 million.

The eagerly awaited third quarter did not turn out to be the typical star performer of the fiscal this year. As consumer sentiment remained cautious amidst a not so robust macro economy, all businesses including the television industry found the going to be tough.

Television, one could argue, should not really take the brunt of weak economic indicators. True, but with subscription growth linked to higher demand for pay channels, growth in households opting for pay-tv, wider adoption of high-definition offerings and proliferation of multi-tv households, the propensity to spend on entertainment consumption does come into play.

In contrast to the typical festival seasonality, DTH industry saw a downturn in subscriber additions this quarter as compared to the previous quarter.

Dish TV India witnessed tapering subscriber acquisitions in the period post Diwali. This was despite a good start to the third quarter and an expectation that H2 of the fiscal should be much stronger than the modest first half.

Product Enhancements and Partnerships

Watcho, the OTT platform of Dish TV India, crossed the 1 million user milestone during the quarter. The Company expanded the footprint of Watcho on leading technology platforms like Amazon Fire TV Stick, Huawei App Store, Dish SMRT Hub and Dish SMRT Stick.

In an endeavour to enable consumers to have a seamless TV & online viewing experience, Dish TV India launched ‘Orbit’, its new user interface (UI) for the recently launched SMRT & Magic range of connected products for both DishTV & d2h.

‘Orbit’ is packed with an array of exciting features which enable seamless user experience across the plethora of content from both traditional and online sources available on the platform.

Dish TV India collaborated with Tata Elxsi for carrying out the UX enhancements for its connected devices. The new interface will enhance content discovery, presentation, recommendation and navigation. It utilizes usage data and metadata in more intuitive and creative ways leveraging AI/ML capabilities of the platform including voice assistance.