Concall Transcript - Dish TV

DISH TV INDIA LIMITED 

4Q FY2010 TELECONFERENCE 

MAY 10, 2010, 4.30 P.M. INDIA TIME 

Moderator: 

Ladies and gentlemen good afternoon, this is Melissa, the Chorus 

Call Conference operator. Welcome to the Dish TV India Limited 

fourth quarter FY10 results conference call. As a reminder, all 

participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be 

an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today’s 

presentation. Should you need assistance during the conference 

call, please signal an operator by pressing * and then 0 on your 

touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being 

recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. 

Tarun Nanda of Dish TV India Limited. Thank you and over to sir. 

Tarun: 

Thank you Melissa. Good evening ladies and gentlemen and thank 

you for joining us today. This conference call has been organized 

to update our investors on the performance of Dish TV India 

Limited in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010 that is, the quarter 

ended March 31 st. and also to share with you the outlook of the 

management of the company. 

Joining us today is the senior management team of Dish TV 

including Mr. Jawahar Goel – Managing Director, Mr. Rajeev 

Dalmia – CFO and Mr. Salil Kapoor - COO. We will start with a 

brief statement from Mr. Goel and will then open the discussion 

for question and answer. 

I would like to remind everybody that anything that we say during 

this call that refers to our outlook for the future is a forward-

DISH TV INDIA LTD 4Q FY2010 TELECONFERENCE MAY 10, 2010 

looking statement that must be taken in the context of the risks that 

we face. I would also like to request all media organizations to 

please refrain from participating in this concall, since it has been 

organized purely for our investors and fund-houses and analysts 

tracking the company. 

With this I would now request Mr. Jawahar Goel to address the 

participants. 

Jawahar: 

Thank you Tarun. Good evening ladies and gentlemen and thank 

you for joining us today to discuss the results of Dish TV India 

Limited for the quarter ended March 31, 2010. 

Digitization in India continues to grow at a rapid pace with over 8 

million new subscribers adopting DTH in financial year 2010. 

Proliferation of television channels, viewers increasing sensitivity 

to quality transmission & programming of their choice and a 

growing demand for value-added services, has further promoted 

the DTH revolution in the country. The DTH category, pioneered 

by Dish TV in India, has caught the fancy of television viewers 

and I am happy to report that the company, with its game changing 

innovations for subscriber acquisition, focus on brand building and 

customer satisfaction, has maintained its leadership position with 

over 33% share in the pay DTH market. 

Dish TV ventured into unexplored territories to further build on its 

leadership and amongst various other groundbreaking initiatives, 

introduced live television entertainment on select trains in India 

thus taking the Indian DTH industry to the next level of 

entertainment. Further, tapping onto the low internet penetration 

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levels in India and sensing upside in the terms of significant 

revenue potential, Dish TV tied up with ‘Yatra.com’, 

‘Monster.com’ and ‘Shaadi.com’ to provide internet-based services 

through DTH television. 

Let me now take you through the results for the fourth quarter and 

year ended March 31 st , 2010: 

Dish TV delivered encouraging numbers and the company crossed 

the ten billion rupee mark in revenues in the fiscal 2010. The 

operating revenues for the period stood at Rs.10.9 billion, 

recording an increase of 48% as compared to the corresponding 

period last fiscal. The operating revenues for quarter four went up 

46% to Rs.3 billion. EBITDA for the year ended March 31 st stood 

at Rs.915 million, an increase of 148% as compared to the 

corresponding period last fiscal. Recording significant year-onyear 

growth, EBITDA for quarter four stood at Rs.354 million. We 

closed the year with a positive EBITDA in each of the four 

quarters. Subscription revenue stood at Rs.8,350 million in 

financial year 2010 as compared to Rs.5,870 million in FY09, 

registering a growth of 42%. 

Moving over to operating performance, in the fiscal gone by Dish 

TV successfully implemented SAP. The implementation of SAP in 

our company marks achievement of the first major milestone 

towards migrating non-standard legacy systems and users to a 

common SAP platform. This program will enable the company to 

integrate and manage its business and reporting process more 

efficiently. 

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Dish TV plans to introduce high-definition service in June this 

year. Our HD set-up box, will enable the subscriber to receive HD 

feed and record content from a single set-top box. We believe the 

Commonwealth games will trigger the high definition revolution in 

India, just like the Asian games drove in the color TV revolution in 

1982. Going forward, the HD technology will further accelerate 

DTH growth in the country. 

An action-packed sports calendar in the current fiscal is expected 

to offer significant incremental revenue opportunity to the DTH 

operators and Dish TV is well-positioned to monetize it. 

I would like to conclude by saying that Dish TV is well-prepared 

to capitalize on the future growth in the DTH industry and that the 

current fiscal would be even better for us in terms of subscriber 

acquisition and overall performance. 

With this I would now like to open the floor for question and 

answer. 

Moderator: 

Amit: 

Rajeev: 

Thank you sir. Ladies and gentlemen we will now begin with the 

question and answer session. The first question is from the line of 

Amit Kumar from Kotak Securities, please go ahead. 

Thank you for the opportunity sir, great set of numbers. I just 

wanted to know the breakup of DTH revenues amongst 

subscription, rental, and bandwidth for this quarter. 

Subscription revenue was Rs. 230 crores, lease rental was Rs. 

41crores and bandwidth was close to Rs. 4.5 crores. Teleport and 

other services are in addition to this. 

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Amit: 

Jawahar: 

Amit: 

Moderator: 

Abneesh: 

Jawahar: 

Abneesh: 

Jawahar: 

Abneesh: 

Sir, I am sorry I missed this point; do you think that the HD service 

will have a recording feature also 

That is right. 

Thanks, that is it from my side. I will come back. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abneesh Roy 

from Edelweiss Capital, please go ahead. 

Sir, congratulations on a good set of numbers. If I see in Q4 there 

are a lot of sports events and this reflects on two things, one is 

subscriber addition being good and second is ad spends being low. 

FY11 also has a lot of sports event, so could you guide us in terms 

how much of ad spends we are looking at and in terms of 

subscriber addition for you and the industry, what is the number 

you are looking at 

Abneesh our marketing budget for the financial year 2010 was to 

the tune of Rs.100 crores, whereas we had spent around Rs. 80 

crores only. We could save money because we have barter 

arrangements with some of our channel providers. That was close 

to Rs. 30 crores. 

What are we giving in return You are getting ad spots. 

We carry them on our platform with some carriage fee and some 

barter. Going forward our ad spend will be in the range of Rs.100 

to 110 crores. 

Okay so will there be a jump of Rs. 30 crores YoY 

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Jawahar: 

Abneesh: 

Jawahar: 

Abneesh: 

Jawahar: 

Abneesh: 

Jawahar: 

Abneesh: 

Jawahar: 

Abneesh: 

Well, we carry on with this kind of budget but we have been 

saving some amount and spending wisely. 

And subscriber addition for you and the industry in FY11 

There are 180 days of sports events and the Commonwealth games 

in addition, so as per our estimates, this year the category should 

add 10 million plus subscribers. We plan to have 25 % plus market 

share. 

Of the incremental 10 million 

Yes. 

And sir could you tell us once the sports events get over, how 

much is the stickiness, what percentage of the subscribers move 

away after say three-four months 

Barring a few sports channels which cover only some events, other 

channels like Ten Sports, Zee Sports, ESPN and Star Sports have 

activities all the year round and thus the subscriber stays on. 

And sir my last question is on your HD offering when is that link 

planned and vis-à-vis competitors we are actually late, so in terms 

of consumer awareness, consumer pull how will you differentiate 

As mentioned in my statement, we are going to launch in the 

month of June. Strategy and differentiation vis-à-vis competitors 

cannot be discussed in this forum. 

And sir lastly on the interest expense, would it go down starting 

Q1 

Page 6 of 24


Rajeev: 

Abneesh: 

Jawahar: 

Rajeev: 

Abneesh: 

Rajeev: 

Abneesh: 

Moderator: 

Rohit: 

Rajeev: 

Rohit: 

Rajeev: 

Rohit: 

Interest cost will continue to be the same at least for the next three 

quarters. 

But you have repaid a lot of debt right 

No, that is not the case. 

Banking debt continues to be Rs. 925 to 950 crores and they have 

not become due. Majority of the debt will become due from next 

year onwards. 

No I was talking about the group debt, you have repaid those 

That was in the month of January, the effect for which is already 

reflected in the month of March. There is no group debt right now 

which has been taken by us. 

Okay sir thanks a lot. 

Thank you Mr. Roy. The next question is from the line of Rohit 

Dokania from B&K Securities, please go ahead. 

Hi sir, congratulations on a good set of numbers, just two - three 

questions. Is there any HITS revenue that we have booked in this 

quarter in the P&L 

It is around Rs. 20 crores. 

Okay and also sir, what is the total Capex for FY10 that we have 

done 

On account of boxes it is around Rs. 550 crores. 

And other than boxes 

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Rajeev: 

Rohit: 

Jawahar: 

Rohit: 

Moderator: 

Sameer: 

Jawahar: 

Around Rs. 25 crores. 

Okay and sir just one final question if you could give us some 

views on how you see the ARPU trending in FY11 over FY10 

average 

See the ARPU on the net subscriber base was Rs. 138 and the 

renewal ARPU is Rs.166. Our exit for next year should be around 

Rs.155. 

Okay that is really helpful sir. Thanks a lot and all the best. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sameer 

Naringrekar from PNB Paribas, please go ahead. 

Hi good afternoon, just one question in terms of the programming 

cost. If I look at your programming cost per subscriber, we had 

seen a drop in the programming cost in the fourth quarter last 

financial year from about Rs.96 to about Rs.66, just want to check 

if the current drop as well to roughly about Rs.72, is it a trend that 

is going to continue or could we probably see the programming 

cost again jump up through about Rs.77 Rs.78 per subscriber levels 

and what should we assume going ahead to be the trend for these 

costs 

Actually in the last to last financial year, in the March quarter there 

was some drop which was on account of some adjustments as a 

result of signing up fixed fee deal with the broadcasters . But for 

the full year there was an almost constant content fee. Next year 

will also be the same because we have signed with majority of the 

broadcasters a deal which is not on per subscriber base but on fixed 

fee basis. 

Page 8 of 24


Sameer: 

Jawahar: 

Sameer: 

Moderator: 

Aditya: 

Just one follow-up question. In terms of subscriber acquisitions, 

what do you think is driving the subscriber additions because we 

are seeing advertisements spends pretty much trending down, the 

commission speed have trended down, especially in a scenario 

where we are seeing increase in competitive intensity, we are 

seeing our telecom operators who are having DTH business pretty 

much offering set-top boxes at less than Rs.1000, so in this kind of 

a scenario how do you expect to compete with them especially if 

the ad spends and the commissions are trending lower 

During the last financial year the category had spent around Rs. 

650 crores on marketing and customer education. We had also 

spent around 15% of that. No other competing category is 

spending on customer education. Moreover, our offers and 

packaging tier etc. is the most consumer friendly. In the last 

financial year we had acquired about 22% of the category 

expansion while in the month of April this year, we did around 

26% of the category. 

Okay thank you so much for your explanation sir, thanks much 

good luck. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditya Mathur 

from Citigroup, please go ahead. 

Thank you. Sir, my question is specifically on your subscriber 

acquisition cost. We have seen a sequential decline to about Rs. 

2383, I just wanted to know what has driven this sequential 

decline, just the rupee appreciation or is it because of cheaper CPE 

cost or is it like a sign of some easing of in competitive activity 

Page 9 of 24


Jawahar: 

Aditya: 

Rajeev: 

Aditya: 

Jawahar: 

Aditya: 

Moderator: 

Nitin: 

The rupee appreciation has been one factor and the second is that 

the money spent on advertisement in the quarter is lower while the 

numbers of subscribers acquired are higher and hence the average 

SAC is lower. 

Sir, can you give me the split between the cost of CPE and 

commission and marketing in this 2383 

Around Rs. 1700 is attributable to hardware and the balance is 

selling & distribution and advertisement 

And sir, what do you think would be the impact on the subscriber 

acquisition cost and the ARPUs given the subscriber growth due to 

the quantum of sporting events next year 

One good thing which has happened in the industry last year is that 

nobody has acquired subscribers at the basic pack (Rs.125) and 

everybody has moved from Rs.150 to Rs.200 for customer 

acquisition. In Dish TV also we had made our basic silver pack as 

a doormat pack in the month of March itself. The upside is that the 

subscription revenue and ARPU etc. will go up. And if you 

consider the last two years, the category acquired 6-7 million and 

8.5 million subscribers respectively, on an average. We will not be 

surprised if it is 11 million this year. 

Alright thank you sir. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nitin Mohta from 

Macquarie, please go ahead. 

Thank you. My question was with relation to the cost side, on the 

programming cost we did hear last time that you had the non linear 

Page 10 of 24


relationship, but if you can share more color on that Will that be 

the trend going forward for the next year or so or you think there 

are going to be changes based upon sports Just wanted to get a 

sense on how should we look at programming cost 

Jawahar: 

Nitin: 

Moderator: 

Ruchit: 

Rajeev: 

Ruchit: 

See some of the content like Sun etc. have to be paid as the 

subscriber grows, rest all others are on fixed fee basis. 

Thank you. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ruchit Mehta 

from SBI Mutual Fund, please go ahead. 

Yes hi, just want to recheck on the Capex side, you said on the 

boxes you spent Rs. 550 crores last year 

Yes. 

But you know you said we added around 1.8 million new 

subscribers during FY10on a gross basis, that would mean that the 

cost of Rs. 3000 on the boxes and typically if you were on 2000 

odd levels…… I just wanted to cross check that 

Rajeev: Yes it is correct, 2750 x 1.85 million comes to around Rs. 508 

crores. 

Ruchit: 

Rajeev: 

Ruchit: 

And you mentioned that Rs. 1700 is on account of the box in SAC. 

That is the approximate amount after we receive a sum of say Rs. 

800 Rs.900 from the subscribers. 

Just wanted to get more clarity on the balance sheet, what is the 

current gross debt and gross cash position 

Page 11 of 24


Rajeev: 

Ruchit: 

Rajeev: 

Gross debt is Rs 925 to 950 crores and will continue to be same at 

least for the next two-three quarters. 

And the cash 

Rs.650 crores including GDR revenue 

Ruchit: Broadly from the funding perspective, if you are looking at 10 

million for the industry, your share would be about 2 to 2.5 million 

subscribers Would we need any capital beyond this because Rs. 

650 crores is probably going to get consumed in this month, but 

beyond that would we be in self funding mode 

Rajeev: 

Ruchit: 

Moderator: 

Ankit: 

Jawahar: 

Ankit: 

We can add another 3.5 million with the projected EBITDA 

margin and Rs. 650 crores cash in hand. We should not require any 

additional cash beyond that. 

Okay thank you. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankit Kedia from 

Centrum Broking, please go ahead. 

Congratulations on the good set of numbers, sir. In one of the 

questions you mentioned that with the Sun Group we still have per 

subscriber based, could you mention which are the other 

broadcasters which whom we are per subscriber based content. 

Rest all others are on fixed fee basis. 

Sir because Sony claims that we do not have a fixed fee license 

when dealing with them so 

Page 12 of 24


Jawahar: 

Ankit: 

Jawahar: 

Ankit: 

You ask them actually, there is no such discussion. There may be a 

lack of understanding. 

Right sir, my second question is regarding the transponder 

addition, when would we like to go for another transponder 

We had just changed our compression chain which has given us an 

additional capacity of one transponder within the same number of 

transponders we are okay with that currently. 

So how many channels can we additionally carry now 

Jawahar: Well, these are very minute details. Actually we can carry either 20 

standard definition channels or 6 HD channels. 

Ankit: 

Moderator: 

Vikash: 

Jawahar: 

Vikash: 

Jawahar: 

Thank you sir. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vikash Mantri 

from ICICI Securities, please go ahead. 

Good afternoon sir, just a reconfirmation on the exit ARPU that 

you mentioned, Rs. 155 is it right sir 

Yes. 

That is after removing the 1 million subscribers which are just 

paying us Rs.25 

They will always be there because the subscribers have been 

acquired four months back and we would continue to acquire new 

subscribers, but in percentage terms the ratio will change due to 

higher base as a proportion to the new subscribers acquired. 

Page 13 of 24


Vikash: 

Rajeev: 

Vikash: 

Rajeev: 

Vikash: 

Rajeev: 

Vikash: 

Moderator: 

Hiren: 

Rajeev: 

Hiren: 

Rajeev: 

Hiren: 

Rajeev: 

Okay sir just wanted to understand what was the money raised and 

money utilized in this quarter because the gross debt and cash 

positions are the same 

Well, the money is actually used for subscriber acquisition. 

How much money in this quarter 

We had spent around Rs. 575 crores in CapEx for the whole year. 

Okay and we also had money coming in from the GDR this quarter 

sir 

Money from GDR came in during the last quarter. 


Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hiren Dasani 

from Goldman Sachs, please go ahead. 

Thank you. What was the content cost for the quarter 

It was around 43% of the subscription revenue. 

So contribution of about 57% is that correct 

Yes. 

In the notes to accounts, there is something called deviation of 

fund utilization pattern of Rs.264 crores which the board approved, 

what is that regarding 

This was regarding the right issue plan of expenses versus the 

actual utilization because the right issue was planned may be 1.5 

Page 14 of 24


years before and in the mean time we had to emphasize more on 

the subscriber acquisitions. So there was some deviation in the 

actual plan of expense which we thought of putting in the form of a 

note and inform the stock exchanges. 

Hiren: 

Rajeev: 

Hiren: 

Rajeev: 

Hiren: 

Jawahar: 

Hiren: 

Moderator: 

Pulakeshin: 

Okay and one more thing is on the license fee, are we still 

accounting it at 10% or are we accounting net 6% of the revenues 

We can’t account it at 6% till the time there is a notification. 

Okay and last thing is in terms of your ARPU I do not understand 

how you would exit with Rs.155 

Rs.166 is the renewal ARPU, Please understand that we have Rs. 

138 as the blended ARPU, which will move to Rs. 155 in March 

2011 but Rs. 166 may be Rs. 170 or Rs.168 at that time. 

Okay. 

We had added two new packs in the month of March; Silver Saver 

and Gold Saver. We already have about 10% of our subscriber 

base on the silver saver whose price is Rs.150. The silver pack has 

been made into a doormat pack, so these are going to give a good 

effect on ARPU. 


Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pulakeshin Shah 

from Jaypee Capital, please go ahead. 

Good morning sir. You current Capex is sufficient for how many 

numbers of subscribers going forward 

Page 15 of 24


Rajeev: 

Pulakeshin: 

Rajeev: 

Pulakeshin: 

Moderator: 

Jamil: 

Rajeev: 

Jamil: 

Rajeev: 

Jamil: 

Rajeev: 

Jamil: 

Moderator: 

Approximately 3.5 million. 

Okay and another question was when do you see your figures to be 

free-cash flow 

We expect that in the first quarter of FY12. 

Okay thank you very much sir. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jamil Ansari from 

Nomura please go ahead. 

Good evening sir. Just wanted to check what was the churn rate in 

this quarter 

0.8% per month. 

So it was slightly lesser than last quarter, okay. And secondly just 

a clarification, we have new offer running in which you pay three 

and get four months, so how would you account for revenues in 

this case, will you do it at pro-rata or will you take the first three 

months and the fourth month free, how would you account it 

It will be pro-rata because we have to apportion it over 120 days. 

Okay so this might put some pressure on ARPUs in this quarter. 

It has already started but it is bringing lot of other benefits and the 

net effect will be positive only. 

Okay fine thanks a lot. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pankaj Tibrewal 

from Kotak Mutual Fund, please go ahead. 

Page 16 of 24


Pankaj: 

In your estimation for next year, how many more subscribers will 

come in from the HD technology which you are talking about 

Jawahar: On HD I think in the total country there is almost maximum 3 

million display device which are high definition ready, so far the 

total category has done around 2000 connections. 

Pankaj: 

Jawahar: 

Pankaj: 

Okay so the category will take a long time to mature. 

Yes it will take some time. 

My third question is that once you achieved the 10 million 

subscribers number, what kind of EBITDA margin do you think 

can be sustainable and can be a real true identification of the 

company 

Jawahar: See on a steady state basis it should be at 31% to 32%. 

Pankaj: 

Moderator: 

Amit: 

Jawahar: 

Okay fair enough, thank you. 

Thank you. The next question is a follow up from the line of Amit 

Kumar from Kotak Securities, please go ahead. 

Hi thanks for the follow up. Sir, I just wanted to know, in the first 

half of the year your churn rate was actually quite low but picked 

up in the second half, so have you done some analysis on why our 

consumers are leaving the DTH, are they going back to cable, are 

they going back to some other platforms, have you tried to figure 

this churn rate at 10% is quite high 

Amit you see, in the third quarter fiscal 2010 there was a high 

churn, reason being that in the previous year we had acquired 

majority of the subscribers on a 12-month basis. When the renewal 

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becomes due, it becomes a significant churn so that is why Q3 was 

higher . 

Rajeev: 

Amit: 

Rajeev: 

Amit: 

Jawahar: 

Amit: 

Jawahar: 

Amit: 

Yes Amit for the first two quarters, the churn was abnormally low. 

As per our business model around 8% to 10% is acceptable and we 

are well within that percentage. Below that it is impractical 

because at 8% to 10% the average life comes to around say 9 to 10 

years. 

Okay and sir the other point which I wanted to discuss is that, how 

do you define churn, I mean a customer has to stop paying you, so 

how long is the period before you decide to declare the churn rate 

It is 120 days past due. 

My final question relates to the Rs. 30 crores of barter advertising 

spent that you described, is this a continuous thing or was this oneoff 

in FY010 and you know you will probably have to spend more 

in terms of cash basis 

No, barter is our capacity to negotiate with the channel, which are 

free to air and this has been growing. 

Yes so, would it be fair to assume that at least these 30 crores will 

be there next year as well 

Yes it is always there and that is why our marketing spent is 

adjusted accordingly, we do not spend on cash basis and we use 

the barter capability. 

Thank you so much. 

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Moderator: 

Shubham: 

Jawahar: 

Thank you. The next question is a follow up from the line of 

Shubham Majumdar from Macquarie, please go ahead. 

Hi thanks for the opportunity. I had two questions, one is what is 

the kind of dip that you have actually seen on a month-on-month or 

quarter-on-quarter basis in terms of net ads market share What I 

am trying to ask here is that, if you go back six to nine months 

when the level of competition in terms of number of competitors 

were much lower, what sort of qualitative change have you seen 

when you go to the marketplace in terms of how customers pick up 

your service vis-à-vis others because I believe your net ad market 

shares would have been higher than 35% a while back and now it 

is probably you are talking about 25% so is there any change 

there And secondly, little bit of a longer term structural question, 

all cable operators or MSOs who have been lying pretty idle in 

terms of competition as a medium to DTH and DTH has pretty 

much had field day over the last three-four years. Are we seeing a 

revival in terms of competition from the cable medium or likely to 

see some revival I think there is a lot of capital inflow from public 

markets as well as private equity that we are seeing in that space 

and a lot of cable operators are talking about very large aggressive 

expansion plans led by triple play and so on and so forth. So, is 

there any medium-to-longer term risk potentially coming on 

horizon from cable operators and MSOs 

Shubham, I will refrain myself from talking on the MSO’s model 

in this conference call. As far as Dish TV and its category is 

concerned, in the month of April Dish TV had acquired 25 - 26%, 

while during the whole of last year we had acquired around 22% 

average of the total category expansion. Our target, if this 

category will grow by 10 to 11 million this financial year, will be 

Page 19 of 24


to have around 25% market share so your apprehension about the 

cable company funding and all that , has been taken due care of by 

the management. 

Shubham: 

Moderator: 

Shreya: 

Rajeev: 

Shreya: 

Jawahar: 

Shreya: 

Moderator: 

Shishir: 

Rajeev: 

Okay thanks very much, very reassuring. 

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shreya Bhansali 

from Wealth Management, please go ahead. 

Hello, sir actually I wanted to ask what exactly do you mean by a 

net subscriber base and a gross subscriber base. 

Those subscribers who have not paid for their services for a 

continuous period of 120 days. 

Sir one more thing if the set-top box experiences a technical 

problem and it does not work and if you acquire a new set-top box 

is there any cost involved 

Yes, if it is within the one year warranty period, it is free else it 

comes to our service center where we charge service fee. 


The next question is from the line of Shishir Manuj from Mangal 

Keshav Securities, please go ahead. 

Just two quick clarifications, one was on the commissioning cost 

per sub, compared to Q3 has it gone up in Q4 

No rather it has gone down by around Rs.20-Rs.25 as compared to 

the average commission payable on a per sub basis. 

Page 20 of 24


Shishir: 

Rajeev: 

Shishir: 

Moderator: 

Shubham: 

Jawahar: 

Okay. And second, if I understand it right this business is a 

negative working capital; I am talking about just the business part 

Yes it is. 

Thank you that is it. 

Thank you. The next question is a follow up from the line 

Shubham Majumdar from Macquarie, please go ahead. 

Just thought that I will grab your attention towards the economics 

of the HD services. I understand that customers are actually paying 

much higher in terms of the initial commitment from their end for 

the set-top box. What exactly is the economics of the HD services 

that we are rolling out relative to what we have seen in the past 

from the normal customer base Is it a significantly better option in 

terms of economics 

You see one company has already done it and they are charging 

Rs.100 extra per month for HD subscriber and two or three HD 

channels. I think we will have to leave some space for this 

category to at least take off; the set-top box has not taken off yet. 

2,000 is a very insignificant number to talk about and let me tell 

you that HD and all such things are futuristic. The broadcaster has 

to have their channels broadcast in high definition. The consumer 

also has to have their high-definition display device television and 

also they should be willing to pay for it. So it is a long way to go, I 

think it will take at least two years to become a significant 

proposition. So, at this moment we are not that worried except that 

we have to launch and be ready in the market very soon. 

Page 21 of 24


Shubham: 

Jawahar: 

I was talking more from point of view of opportunity there, I think 

somebody having launch is probably not reason to get worried 

because the game is still very much on, right. I just wanted to 

know what incremental cost of a set-top box on HD with recording 

facility relative to the normal set-top box that you are currently 

rolling out and secondly, what is the estimate that you have on how 

many television sets in India would be HD ready at this point in 

time, if you can put any color please 

Shubham, the pricing part and at what price are we going to buy 

that is competitive information which we would like to reserve for 

the time being. Mr. Salil Kapoor will answer your other question. 

Salil: LCD and Plasma market for this year is estimated to be around 3 

million sets and close to 50% of that would be HD. Safely around 

1.5 million high definition sets will be rolled out in the market this 

year. We can safely assume that there is about 0.5 million to about 

three quarter of a million sets already lying, so it could be 

somewhere around 2.25 million sets which are HD enabled out 

there in the market. 

Shubham: 

Moderator: 

Rohit: 

Jawahar: 

Right okay thanks very much for the color. 

Thank you. The next question is a follow up from the line of Rohit 

Dokania from B&K Securities, please go ahead. 

Thank you for giving this opportunity again. Just wanted to know 

how many record and play set-top boxes would be there in the 

market, this year basically 

Only 20,000 have gone to the consumer’s home and the DTH 

operators. The manufactured quantity must be around 1.5 lakhs. 

Page 22 of 24


Rohit: 

Moderator: 

Ankit: 

Jawahar: 

Salil: 

Ankit: 

Rajeev: 

Jawahar: 

Ankit: 

Jawahar: 

Great sir thanks. 

Thank you. The next question is a follow up from the line of Ankit 

Kedia from Centrum Broking, please go ahead. 

Sir, I just wanted to know, what is the commission on recharge 

coupons that we are giving to distributo 

4.5 to 4.75% and it is likely to go down in future. 

Yes and it is consolidated between the dealer and the distributor, so 

about 1%-1.5% is with the distributor and the rest of with the 

dealers. 

Sir why is it expected to come down 

Because the volume is going up so their ROI is still maintained and 

rather improving. 

Mr. Kedia the total category has collected around Rs. 3,500 crores 

in financial year 2010 and is expected to collect around Rs.6, 000 

crores in this financial year, so more and more people are entering 

this category. The same thing happened with telecom. Telecom 

started with 6% to 7%, we also gave 6% and now we have reduced 

it to 4.5% while telecom is giving 3- 3.5% only. As the industry 

reaches gross turnover of Rs. 10,000 crores this is certainly going 

to come down. 

Sure, sir are all the players doing this together or is this a Dish TV 

initiative 

Well, so far our recharge distributors are exclusive but going 

forward they may become multi-brand distributors. 

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Ankit: 

Moderator: 

Tarun: 


Thank you. As we have no further questions, I would like to hand 

the floor back to the management of Dish TV for closing 

comments. Please go ahead sir. 

Thanks Melissa. Ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining us, 

we soon hope to have a transcript of the call on our website 

www.dishtv.in. We look forward to speaking to you at the end of 

the first quarter of fiscal 2011 or even earlier on one-one basis, 

thank you and have a great day. 

# This transcript has been suitably edited for ease of reading. 

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Concall Transcript - Dish TV

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