Videocon d2h, one of 6 major direct to home satellite TV providers in India has added almost 600,000 subscribers to its customer base in the quarter and 1.68 million over this time last year. Its revenues jumped 26% for the quarter to the equivalent of $387 million.
India continues to grow subscribers at an astonishing rate, with Dish TV on 14.5 million, up 508,000 in its last reported quarter; Airtel on 11.7 million also up over 500,000 net additions, and Videocon d2h now on 11.86 subscribers. Other players such as Tata Sky, Reliance and SunDirect manage to hide their precise additions among large consolidated figures, but are thought to be growing at roughly the same rate, adding some 2.5 million TV homes each quarter between them – almost 10 million a year, and slowly coming to grips with churn.
Subscription and activation revenue for Videocon d2h grew 26.4% and the company said this was the highest net subscriber addition for the 6th year in a row with 800,000 gross additions meaning it must have lost some 210,000 to churn to bring net additions to 590,000.
Videocon said that its gross additions had gone up by 2.65 million over this time last year, so it must be doing something right in terms of increasing its appeal over rivals, and that churn is now 0.58% per month (1.74% per quarter) down from 0.80% per month or 2.4% per quarter last year.
This is the first fiscal year after Videocon d2h went public on Nasdaq in the US and the company recorded some 31.5% EBITDA growth during its fiscal 2016. During which time it has developed a new HD set top which offers OTT video extras.