ITV

Tag: DirecTV US

  • India is driving Pay TV growth: Infonetics Research

    India is driving Pay TV growth: Infonetics Research

    MUMBAI: The emerging markets are driving growth in the pay-TV market. That is what a recent paper released by Infonetics Research says. Markets such as India, China and Latin America are the ones adding to the pay-TV growth.

     

    The research that was conducted by tracking the cable TV, satellite TV and IPTV subscribers of over 150 service providers across the globe states that India and Latin America are adding satellite and cable subscribers while China is experiencing an increase in IPTV subscribers.

     

    Infonetics Research principal analyst for broadband access and pay TV Jeff Heynen says, “Latin America’s economy, in particular, is performing well, with companies investing in Brazil ahead of the FIFA World Cup and consumers signing up for pay-TV services to the tune of 9% growth in the third quarter of 2013 from the year-ago period.”

     

    India’s Tata Sky, which has close to 11 million subscribers, finds a place in the top five satellite providers by subscribers list at number four just behind DirecTV US, DISH Network and DirecTV Latin America. The world’s leading provider of cable TV services Comcast lost out on 3,55,000 subscribers over a year, retaining 21.6 million subscribers as of Q3 2013.

     

    India is in its last two phases of digitisation. In the first two, about 25 million subscribers from analogue switched to digital. Another 75 million will be added to the list by the end of 2014 adding more to the growth of pay-TV.

     

    Hopefully by the end of the year, India would have more reasons to make its mark on the global map.

  • DirecTV US 2Q revenues increase 12% to $3.3 billion

    DirecTV US 2Q revenues increase 12% to $3.3 billion

    MUMBAI:The DirecTV Group Inc. today reported that the second quarter revenues increased 10 per cent to $3.52 billion and operating profit nearly doubled to $977 million compared to last year’s second quarter.

    The Group reported second quarter 2006 operating profit and net income both more than doubled to $741 million and $459 million, respectively, when compared to the same period last year.

    Earnings per share were $0.36 compared with $0.12 in the same period last year. These operating results include the effect of $253 million of equipment that DirecTV US capitalized during the quarter under its lease program, which was implemented 1 March 2006, according to an official statement.

    “Similar to recent quarters, DirecTV US generated excellent financial results highlighted by a 12 per cent increase in revenues to $3.3 billion, a 93 per cent increase in operating profit before depreciation and amortization to $977 million and a nearly tripling of cash flow before interest and taxes to $450 million,” said DirecTV Group president and CEO Chase Carey.

    “In many ways, the results in the quarter reflect our strategy to target higher quality subscribers. For example, although gross subscriber additions of 863,000 and net additions of 125,000 in the quarter were below expectations, it’s important to note that we added 11 per cent more higher quality gross subscribers in the quarter compared to last year,” said Carey.

    “This trend — which is driving both the top-line and bottom-line financial results — is primarily due to the ongoing changes we’re making to refine our credit policy and dealer network. These factors played an important role in reducing DirecTV’s monthly churn rate from 1.69 per cent to 1.59 per cent this quarter.”

    “In addition, customers are buying more premium services such as high definition programming and digital video recorders which is contributing to the strong ARPU growth of 5.6 per cent in the quarter.”

    On 1 March 2006, DirecTV US introduced a set-top receiver lease program primarily to increase future profitability by providing DirecTV US with the opportunity to retrieve and reuse set-top receivers from deactivated customers. Under this new program, set-top receivers are capitalized and depreciated over their estimated useful lives of three years.

    The amount of cash DirecTV U.S. paid during the quarter ended 30 June 2006 for leased set-top receivers totaled $253 million — $153 million for subscriber acquisitions and $100 million for upgrade and retention.