Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Hathway Cable & Datacom - Maximize Digital Gains

After rolling out prepaid billing and packing for its primary subscribers, Hathway has now launched packaging for its secondary subscribers under “Hathway connect”. The company has launched 2 commercial packs (INR330 – all channels except English bouquet and INR425 for all channels). Currently, it is at pilot phase and only launched in Bangalore. The company awaits feedback on the packs, post which it will roll out the packs in entire Phase I and II markets. As compared to Den Networks, Hathway has higher primary subscriber base, well entrenched broadband operations and has seeded the highest number of boxes amongst MSOs. 

Hathway is the best placed MSO to capitalise on the digitisation opportunity. Currently, the company’s digital subscriber base stands at 9.6mn. Also, we like the company’s strategy of increasing investment in the high-margin broadband business, which has started to yield returns.

Sunday, March 06, 2016

DTH Business Report healthy Numbers - Airtel / Videocon

Both Videocon DTH and Airtel DTH reported healthy quarterly numbers over the last couple of days. We look at the metrics and some read-through for Indian cable/satellite space, including Dish.

VDTH added 0.43m subs in the December quarter, increasing net subs by ~15% yoy. The comparable number for Airtel DTH was 0.53m subs, increasing net subs by ~13% yoy. While both VDTH and Airtel
DTH also benefited by sequentially lower churn, underlying momentum in the market remains strong - we expect Dish to add 0.40m subscribers in the quarter.

The trend on ARPUs remains healthy (VDTH: ~8% yoy, Airtel DTH: ~7% yoy) - this is a result of price
hikes taken in the recent past, HD adoption (trends do vary from quarter to quarter though) and increasing value added services. For Dish TV, we model in ~5% increase in ARPUs for FY16 yoy.

With attractive content deals and operating leverage continuing to play, the sector continues to deliver good EBITDA margin expansion. Both VDTH (~390 bps yoy) and Airtel DTH (~600 bps yoy) reported healthy margin expansion resulting in EBITDA growing ~42%/45% yoy respectively.