Sun Direct forays into Mumbai market; to complete all-India rollout this week

[suryan]

The already fierce DTH war in Mumbai, particularly between Big TV and Airtel Digital TV, who nearly came to blows through their advertisements, is set to get fiercer still with the launch of Sun Direct in Mumbai on Monday, December 8, 2008. The DTH space in India’s financial capital is already witness to some intense competition between DishTV, Tata Sky, Big TV and Airtel Digital TV.
The direct-to-home (DTH) television service promoted by Chennai-based Sun TV Network Ltd founder Kalanidhi Maran’s Sun Direct TV, is on an expansion spree, which began in three phases. Sun Direct kickstarted the third phase with its Mumbai launch and plans to complete its pan-India rollout by the end of this week, beginning with its Mumbai launch.
McCann Erickson is handling the creative duties for Sun Direct, while Mindshare is the media agency. The DTH company plans to have a 360-degree campaign involving print, television, radio, the Internet and outdoor, and spend Rs 150 crore on marketing and branding campaigns to push their pan-India presence.
Speaking with exchange4media, Tony D’Silva, COO, Sun Direct, said, “DTH is not a rich man’s perk as people pay for what they watch and we are merely following this policy in Mumbai as well. All our channels on our platforms are comprehensive; we are offering more than 200 channels. Our market spend will be Rs 150 crore, which is pan-India.”
DTH players boast of quality services and high development technology. However, TRAI has recently issued a consultation paper to ensure quality service to subscribers residing in non-CAS areas as well as those subscribing to DTH services. As per TRAI, there are 78 million consumers receiving cable TV services in non-CAS areas, being served by about 60,000 cable operators.
The issues raised for DTH quality of services pertain to dropping of channels by the service providers, maintenance and visiting charges and protection to the subscribers regarding their tariff plans.
The cable industry, on the other hand, see this as a move in the right direction as it would allow them to give a tougher competition to the DTH players and help retain their subscribers.
While DishTV claims to have 53 per cent of the market share of the total DTH subscribers, Big TV aims to capture 40 per cent of DTH market by 2011. The DTH space in India is expected to grow to to 40 million subscribers by 2015.
Sun Direct services are currently available in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and the NCR. The services will be available in rest of the states from December 8. Sun Direct claims to have currently attained a subscriber base of 1.9 million.

Source: India media news marketing India advertising Indian brands tv media newspapers

 

[vln_arun]

Thanks suryan:thumbsup:

 

[TeluguGuy]

The highest population in India of middle class and SD is for middle class families. It will be the DTH of this class very soon. First MPEG4 technology in India, 200 channels, monthly basic subcription of 75 RS, makes it the obvious choice for middle class

 

[mailtoviki]

Sun Direct eyes break even in 6 years; launches in Mumbai Indiantelevision.com Team
(8 December 2008 6:00 pm)
MUMBAI: After mobilising close to two million direct-to-home (DTH) subscribers from the four southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, Kalanithi Maran is ready to do battle outside his home turf.
Sun Direct, owned by the Maran family and 20 per cent by Malaysia-based Astro, today announced launch of its DTH service in Mumbai.
Plans are also afoot to take it to other parts of the country within a week as Maran sets himself the ambitious target of pocketing three million subscribers by the end of this fiscal.
"We will be able to mop up over one million subscribers during the final four months of the fiscal. While 99 per cent of our current subscriber base comes from the south, we have an aggressive pricing policy which will help us garner subscribers from the other pockets of the country. We have also recently created a Hindi bouquet," says Sun Direct COO Tony D'Silva.
Sun Direct has already pumped in Rs 20 billion and expects to break even in six years. The advertising budget for this fiscal is Rs 1.5 billion.
Sun Direct's current ARPUs are at Rs 85-90, the lowest among all the DTH operators. "Our plan is to have high volumes. This will help us in reaching a break even stage as our costs are not as high as the others," says D'Silva.
Adding Hindi and sports channels in the bouquet took time and the launch in Mumbai was delayed by a shortage of supply in set-top boxes.
"There has been heavy snowfall in China and Beijing Olympics delayed supply of boxes. So during the festival season of Diwali, we did not have set top boxes to sell. Now the supply is comfortable and we are in a position to launch in other parts of the country," said D'Silva.
Sun has added Samsung in its list of vendors for set-top boxes. The other two STB suppliers are China-based Coship and Korean firm Homecast.
"The economic meltdown is driving down the prices of STBs. Our STBs currently cost around $45," says D'Silva.
Locked in a long round of negotiations and legal disputes, Sun Direct has just added the three ESPN Star Sports channels. Available on a la carte rates from late last week, ESPN and Star Sports are priced at Rs 38 each per month while Star Cricket costs Rs 32.
"We are in talks with Neo. The other sports channels are available on our platform," says D'Silva.
D'Silva believes Sun Direct's regional package, "My Pack," will be highly attractive for consumers. “Our services and bouquet of packages are value for money as we have custom designed packages for every state and region. We spent considerable amount of time since our launch last December, understanding the customer appetite for entertainment and how best we can cater to their entertainment requirements and also by putting our distribution and post sales services in place,” he says.
The regional package ‘My Pack’ is at Rs 299 and is available in markets with strong regional affinity for four months in Punjab, Gujarat , West Bengal, Orissa and Maharashtra. The Hindi package ‘Shine Pack’ is at Rs 499 and Rs 999 which is available for five and 10 months respectively.
Sun Direct offers more than 200 channels including 23 radio channels and video-on-demand. It offers a basic package of over 130 channels for an introductory offer of Rs 499 which includes five months subscription, along with free dish and set top box and Rs 1000 towards installation charges. The add-on channels will offer 36 channels ranging from Rs 6 to Rs 195 per month.

South packs are available in Rs 499 and Rs 999 in Tamil Basic, Telugu Basic, Kannada Basic and Telugu Basic (available all India). The ‘Jumbo Pack’ for South and North is for Rs 300 per month. The content will vary according to the region, D'Silva says.
Sun Direct has space for five HD channels. "This will be for the top-end of the market and give us higher ARPUs (average revenue per user)," D'Silva adds.

Sun Direct already has a 65 per cent market share in south India, and had launched its services in select north India markets a few months ago.


On an average, it adds 10,000 subscribers a day, said D'Silva.


The company has so far invested Rs 2,000 crore in setting up an earth station, importing set-top boxes (from China and Korea), distribution channels, and in manpower.


It operates through seven transponders on Insat 4B satellite, and plans to lease two more.

The company spends about Rs 55 lakh a month as lease for the five transponders.


http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/sun-launches-dth-services-in-mumbai/00/51/342669/