Mr. Subhash Chandra Chairman
The year gone by has seen progressive improvements in the global macro environment especially towards the latter part of the year. The continued supportive actions by the Federal Reserve and ECB have acted to soothe the nerves of investors across the world, and the periodic crisis type situations which emerged over the last three years following the 2008 financial crisis have ebbed giving rise to hopes of stabilization in the Global economy.
Closer home, the RBI continued to fight its resolute battle against inflation preferring to sacrifice growth in the short term. Inflation remained stubbornly high through most part of the year, however it showed signs of coming down towards the end of the fiscal year. The macro economic situation remained challenging in India with the consumer retrenching in the face of high cost of credit as well as high inflation. The good news however that is with inflation pressures giving signs of easing, monetary policy should follow suit soon and the dividends of the pain of the last few years in the form of high growth with low inflation is something we can eagerly look forward to.
The Broadcasting Industry during the course of the year witnessed momentous steps being taken by the Industry and the Government to entirely convert the analog infrastructure into digital as per the roadmap laid out under the Digital Addressable Systems (DAS) Regulations of the Government of India. Though implementations in many cities have left much to be still desired, and in many other states litigation has thwarted the progress, nonetheless the tide has finally turned and the move to a Digital India is now clearly unstoppable.
Your Company continued to be in the forefront of digitization achieving the highest share of Direct-to-Home (DTH) subscribers in the Phase I digitization markets of Delhi, Kolkatta, Chennai and Mumbai. Your Company continued to lead the way in innovation by launching India’s first Standard Definition Recorder at an affordable price to the consumer. This Standard Definition Recorder is a unique product which brings the benefit of recording to the mass consumers for the first time and was enthusiastically lapped up by the consumers.
During the year, your Company also took the initiative to roll out its Service Network Pan India from a presence in around 200 cities earlier. This move represents a significant investment by the Company in putting the customer first and will dramatically improve the service quality across all top strata and across income groups.
Total revenues of your Company grew 11 % to Rs. 2169 Crs. while subscription revenue which is the core revenue grew much faster at 16 % over the prior year to Rs. 1922 Crs. EBITDA registered a strong increase of 16 % over the prior year to close at Rs. 580 Crs.
I am also very pleased to share with you that your Company continued to generate operational Cash Flow for the full year. This is truly a landmark which demonstrates the robustness of our business model and reinforces DISHTV’s position as not only the largest, but also the most profitable DTH operator in Business in India.
In a fitting recognition, the Internationally renowned business magazine Euromoney ranked DISHTV as the best managed media Company in all of Asia, in a poll conducted amongst over one hundred and fifty bankers, analysts and investment advisors across Asia.
At DISHTV today we have renewed the focus on creating value for all of our Stakeholders by focusing on profitable growth. The core metrics that we are focusing on revolve around quality, be it in subscriber acquisitions or in product delivery or in customer satisfaction. The Industry is in the process of maturing while still growing and the core emphasis on revenue growth and profitability that we have adopted in Dish TV will ensure that your Company will remain as the leader in content aggregation and delivery and will continue to be the Industry benchmark in value creation for all Stakeholders.