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Anil Khera has contributed in no small measure to that success. A very desi brand builder and marketer, he is known to have his ear very close to the ground, and his eye on the consumer. Today Videocon d2h has more than 10 million subscribers and claims to be the fastest growing company in terms of net DTH additions. And Khera is looking at further accelerating that growth.
He took out some time to speak to indiantelevision.com’s Vishaka Chakrapani about the company’s stellar performance, the way ahead and the DTH industry on an overall basis.
Excerpts:
How has 2013 been for Videocon d2h? What are your expectations in 2014?
2013 has been a tremendous year for us. We consolidated our market leadership further and maintained a 26-27 per cent market share in incremental growth. We crossed 10M subscriber base and introduced several innovative products like 1TB DVR recording facility in zapper boxes through USB etc.
We expect 2014 to be a similar year. We would also look at introducing new products and services to our customers like Anywhere TV etc.
What is good about the India DTH industry? How can it be made better?
The size of Indian Pay TV market in terms of number of subscribers is unparalleled across the world. Also, it’s a completely open market structure that promotes competition by accommodating several DTH and Cable companies at the same time. However, its overly regulated and high rate of taxation is the single biggest issue.
What differentiates Videocon d2h from other players?
The hallmark of Videocon d2h is its simplicity and execution focus in approach. Some of these can be described as:
·We constantly thrive on simplifying our offerings to customers.
·Our consumer durable DNA means we have decades of insights and knowledge on customer behavior.
·Our entire organisation is very execution orientated constantly speaking to trade and customers.
What are the value added services (VAS) that the subscribers get from d2h? How do you finalise the services for your customers?
We offer the following value added services:
·Pay Per View channel bringing the best and latest movies to our customers
·In house VOD channels
·Audio music channels bringing music across 20 genres ranging from religious to romantic
·Audio Video channel
·Premium subscription channels like Star World Premiere
·Special customised tickers like stock market updates 24X7 across any channel
Our services are finalised on the customer’s demands, maturity of offering and our hypothesis on future potential of the service.
Do you have plans to target the mobile space any time soon?
We would be launching Anytime TV sometime soon in 2014.
How many net customer additions did you have in 2013? Have you seen a fall in the number of subscribers?
We have added arguably the largest chunk of industry net additions in 2013. We have certainly seen dramatic fall in churn rates post phase 1 and phase 2 digitisation. We expect this to further drop post phase 3 and 4 of digitisation process.
How has revenue growth been in 2013? Has the revenue growth been on account of subscriber additions or rise in average revenue per user (ARPU)?
2013 has seen significant growth in terms of revenue. This has been on account of:
·Subscriber base has gone up significantly from where we were at the start of the year.
·Customer prices have seen a 5-6 per cent increase during the year.
·Increase in HD is improving our revenue mix and hence overall revenue.
·With reduction in churn and suspension rates due to digitisation, customer realisation has improved quite a lot.
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