On DTH launch of Big TV

The DTH space in India holds immense growth potential in the years to come. With close to 125 million TV households adding 14 million new TV sets every year, India's TV viewership is the 2nd largest in the world. While 65 million of these are C&S homes, a mere 4 percent are DTH homes and close to 95 percent are still on analog feed. Reliance ADA Group has always believed in doing everything on a BIG canvas with a critical eye on consumer experience and value. We did it when we came in with the mobile services, literally changing the paradigm of mobile telephony in India. We aim to repeat the same phenomenon with Big TV too. We have got MPEG 4, the latest technology that helps us deliver digital quality audio and video as well as far more number of channels to the customer.

On your projections for DTH

Independent industry reports forecast the DTH segment to capture at least 40 percent of the C&S homes market by the year 2015. We believe that the potential could be much higher as the Indian TV viewers would naturally opt for best class viewing experience and wholesome family entertainment at value-for-money price proposition.

Our experience in telecom services makes us confident that a superior digital quality picture and sound experience, over 200 channel options, availability across 6500 towns, and best class customer service support infrastructure would bring in a paradigm shift in growth of DTH industry in India. Big TV DTH service would be among the significant growth drivers for Reliance Communications in the years to come.

On your focus areas and distribution strategies

Distribution and after-sales service are key drivers for the growth in any product and services business. It would be notable to mention that Big TV underwent a rigorous testing phase with over 1 lac connections across 2000 towns for over 6 months to deliver a unique home entertainment service. We have established an on-ground infrastructure to cater to TV households across 6500 towns in the country, almost double of any other DTH operator. The widespread network across 1 lac outlets includes an efficient demo and installation mechanism at the launch stage.

Big TV has been made available to customers through a network of 700 distributors and over 100,000 retail outlets including over 2000 exclusive Reliance stores. The sales channel is spread across 41,000-odd telecom outlets, 26000-odd FMCG retail outlets, and 36,000-odd consumer durable outlets.

Big TV has a network of 500 service partners, 5,400 trained installers, and 250 installation vans having a capacity to execute 450,000 installations per month. Every service partner in the network has a 10-day inventory of equipment in stock and is supported with 108 material stocking locations across the country.

Big TV customer service mechanism includes two call centers with a capability to handle 50,000 calls per day in 11 languages.

On current volume of DTH in India

India is currently the world's 2nd largest TV viewing market, adding over 14 million new TV sets per year over and above the existing 125 million TV households. As per industry data, India has around 65 million and 7 million households each on C&S and DTH respectively. The desire for a quality and enriched home entertainment service at value-driven pricing holds immense potential in every TV household in India.

On challenges and opportunities

The opportunity for us is to offer a service preferred by 125 million TV households in the country. Foreseeing the opportunity and the underlying challenges, we have already established an unmatched retail distribution network reaching out to 75 percent of Indian population. In order to offer the most exhaustive portfolio of TV, movie, and audio channels in English, Hindi and regional languages, we have deployed MPEG4 technology, a generation ahead of any other DTH operator.

On your offerings

We have entered the market with our service priced at Rs. 1,490 which includes three months complimentary subscription. Our monthly subscription ranges between Rs. 100 and Rs. 450 depending on the bouquet of channels that the customer wants. Unlike other available options, we empower our customers with complete freedom to choose the channels they want.

On your major vendors

We are currently procuring set-top boxes from Hyundai. Big TV has deployed head-end equipment from world's leading digital transmission equipment provider Thomson. The middleware has been sourced from Open TV