(16 May 2012 11:59 pm)

MUMBAI: The wild swing in the rupee continues to pinch India’s leading direct-to-home service provider for the second straight quarter. Dish TV has widened its fiscal-fourth quarter net loss to Rs 490 million due to foreign exchange loss of Rs 65 million.

The company had posted a net loss of Rs 430 million in the trailing quarter.

Dish TV’s net sales rose to Rs 5.24 billion in the three-month period ended 31 March 2012, up from Rs 4.90 billion in the prior quarter.

Ebitda stood at Rs 1.44 billion, up 20 per cent from the trailing quarter and 60 per cent from the year-ago period. Assuming there are no one off write backs, the Ebitda performance was clearly much better than what the market expected.

“This was mainly triggered by renegotiation of content cost in the fourth quarter of this fiscal,” a media analyst says.

The company’s total expenses jumped to Rs 5.45 billion during the quarter under review, from Rs 4.93 billion.

Subscription revenues stood at Rs 4.34 billion. The ARPU rose by just one per cent to Rs 153.

Dish TV added 4,15000 subscribers in the quarter, achieving a total of 12.9 million gross and 9.6 million net subscribers at the end of the period.

Says Dish TV managing director Jawahar Goel, “While managing a trade-off between quality and quantity of new subscribers in the fiscal gone by, the DTH category witnessed a slowdown after a price hike at the entry level. The category added 10.5 million subscribers in fiscal 2012 compared to 13.3 million in the year before that. However, Dish TV witnessed a marked improvement in its key metrics after the price hike was initiated. With quality subscribers coming on board thereafter, Dish TV’s monthly churn number in the fourth quarter aligned with its internal benchmark.”

Subscriber Acquisition Cost (SAC) stayed flat at Rs 2,127 compared to Rs 2,124 in the preceding quarter.