Direct-to-home services provider Dish TV on Thursday announced that increased revenues of Rs 490.46 crore enabled the firm to narrow its net loss to Rs 42.96 crore in the third quarter ended December 31, 2011.
The company had posted a net loss of Rs 44.28 crore for the October-December quarter last year, Dish TV said in a statement, adding that revenues stood at Rs 373.16 crore during the period.
“Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment and resultant price sensitivity, subscriber additions across the DTH industry have been encouraging. With digitalisation expected to boost subscriber additions, Dish TV is well—entrenched to further build on its supremacy while also targeting larger uptake of ARPU accretive HD subscribers,” said Mr Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Dish TV India.
The company said its results were negatively impacted by a foreign exchange loss of Rs 15.6 crore.
“Due to a further 8 per cent depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar in this quarter, there is an additional foreign exchange loss of Rs 156 million. The foremost reason for this loss is significant foreign currency debt, which needs to be reported using the closing exchange rate,” said Mr Jawahar Goel, MD.,Dish TV.
Dish TV added 740,000 new subscribers during the quarter ended December 31, 2011, achieving a total of 12.5 million gross and 9.5 million net subscribers at the end of the period.
Subscription revenues for the quarter stood at Rs 425.4 crore, a growth of 37.6 per cent in comparison to the corresponding period last fiscal.
Other operating revenues included lease rent of Rs 44.9 crore, bandwidth revenues of Rs 11.2 crore and teleport and trading income of Rs 4.9 crore.
The platform added eight new channels during the quarter and remains the only DTH provider in the country to have a fail—proof twin satellite arrangement.
Shares of Dish TV today closed at Rs 61.15 apiece on the BSE today, down 2.47 per cent from their previous close.