Regulatory issues hurt DTH business: Bharti Airtel's Gopal Vittal
During the company's Q4 earnings call, vice-chairman and MD Gopal Vittal said different distribution systems-like cable TV, DTH, and broadband-are governed by different regulations, despite serving the same set of consumers, with DTH facing stringent rules such as cross-holding restrictions and pricing caps.
'The DTH industry is going through its moment of reckoning-not just due to legitimate technological disruption, like IPTV and broadband-enabled connected boxes, but also because of how it has been regulated,' Vittal said, adding, 'Today, three neighbouring homes-one with DTH, one with cable, and one with broadband-operate under entirely different regulatory constructs. DTH faces price controls and cross-holding restrictions; cable has a different set of rules, and broadband is completely unregulated.' He also pointed out the impact of DD Free Dish on the pay-DTH universe, which he said was launched by the government for entirely different purposes.
'Then there's the rise of DD Free Dish, which offers strong entertainment content at little to no cost. These are some of the other headwinds that the industry is facing,' he said, pointing out that the original intent of DD Free Dish was to provide educational programming in domains like agriculture in rural areas.
Despite these headwinds, Vittal believes DTH still has a future, as home broadband won't reach every household-out of 260-270 million homes in India, which includes 150-160 million TV homes. 'Perhaps 75-80 million will have broadband in the next five years. That leaves a significant market for linear TV, where DTH will continue to play a role. And there's still an opportunity to grow from cable,' Vittal said.
On May 3, Airtel announced that it and Tata Play-70% owned by Tata Sons-had mutually agreed to end their discussions, having failed to reach a satisfactory resolution. The deal, if consummated, would have created India's leading pay-TV operator.Airtel has also done away with subsidies on set-top boxes (STBs) to reduce capex in DTH. In FY25, the company's capex on digital TV, which also includes IPTV from Q4, rose 16% to ₹1,665 crore.'We've taken a brave call and done it. We're waiting for the competition to follow, and we hope sense will prevail to strip those subsidies out-because there's no point in subsidies that just rotate your customer,' he said.
Airtel Digital TV, the DTH brand of Airtel, competes with Tata Play, Sun Direct and Dish TV in the DTH industry, which had 58.22 million paid DTH subscribers as of December 2024.
'We've now launched IPTV, which will further enhance our customer experience drive. Convergence has also lowered our capex spend on the box,' Vittal noted. Airtel's digital TV business added 76,000 customers in Q4, largely aided by the IPTV launch.
In March, Bharti Airtel launched its IPTV service in 2,000 Indian cities, offering 600 TV channels, high-speed Wi-Fi, and on-demand content from 29 streaming apps.
'Our IPTV launch has seen an encouraging response from customers. IPTV delivers enhanced convenience with a better user experience and flexibility to watch on demand as well as catch-up content, in addition to linear broadcast content,' he noted.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Indian dealers offer steeper discounts as price rally dulls demand
By Rajendra Jadhav and Brijesh Patel (Reuters) - Gold discounts in India widened this week to their highest levels in more than a month, as a rally in domestic prices to near-record highs weighed on demand, while elevated rates also dampened buying across other major Asian hubs. Domestic gold prices were trading around 98,300 rupees per 10 grams on Friday, after rebounding from a low of 90,890 rupees last month and nearing the all-time high of 99,358 rupees. The spike in prices forced Indian dealers to offer discounts of up to $56 an ounce below official domestic prices, which include a 6% import duty and 3% sales tax, up from $31 last week. "Prices have gone up, and that's really hit demand. Hardly anyone was buying this week," said Harshad Ajmera of wholesaler JJ Gold House in Kolkata. Gold demand in India typically remains subdued during the monsoon season, which began earlier than usual this year. Jewellers are not making purchases because the lean demand season has started, and they don't want to build high-cost inventory, said a Mumbai-based bullion dealer with a private bank. Meanwhile, dealers in top gold consumer China charged premiums of $10-$14 an ounce over the global benchmark spot price. Last week, bullion changed hands at par to a $15 premium. "Elevated gold prices appear to have negatively impacted Chinese demand, judging by weaker trading volume," said Hugo Pascal, a precious metals trader at InProved. In Hong Kong, gold was sold at a premium of $0.30 to $1.30, while in Singapore gold traded between at-par prices and a $2.50 premium. "We've seen some of our clients coming to take profit and also on the wholesale side, we've seen some selling because prices are high," said Brian Lan, managing director at Singapore-based GoldSilver Central. In Japan, bullion traded anywhere between a discount of $0.5 and a $0.5 premium over spot prices.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Vietnam Inks Deals to Buy $3 Billion US Products Before Talks
(Bloomberg) -- Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks global trade. Sign up here. Next Stop: Rancho Cucamonga! Where Public Transit Systems Are Bouncing Back Around the World ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Targeted for Deportation with New Contract US Housing Agency Vulnerable to Fraud After DOGE Cuts, Documents Warn Trump Said He Fired the National Portrait Gallery Director. She's Still There. Vietnamese businesses have signed 20 agreements worth about $3 billion to import more US agricultural products ahead of the third round of official negotiations set to take place next week. Memoranda of understanding were signed during talks involving Minister of Agriculture and Environment Do Duc Duy in Iowa, Ohio, Maryland and Washington from June 2-6, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday. 'These agreements highlight the strong commitment and goodwill of Vietnam's business community and government to promote balanced trade with the US, and to encourage the Trump administration to reconsider high reciprocal tariffs on Vietnamese goods,' it said. Vietnam has engaged in weeks of intense diplomacy with the US — the largest export market of the trade-reliant country — as it seeks to avert a threatened 46% tariff, which was later wound back to 10% for 90 days to allow time for talks. The reference to 'goodwill' echoes language used earlier this week, when the Southeast Asian nation sent a written reply to US trade requests after the Trump administration vowed to keep pressuring the country to reduce its role in China supply chains. Vietnam cited progress after the second round of trade talks last month but said that outstanding issues remain. It's taken steps to address some US concerns, such as stepping up a crackdown on trade fraud and promising to buy US agricultural products. Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Wants to Donate His Billions—and Walk Again The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling YouTube Is Swallowing TV Whole, and It's Coming for the Sitcom Is Elon Musk's Political Capital Spent? Trump Considers Deporting Migrants to Rwanda After the UK Decides Not To ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
San Francisco Chronicle
4 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Asian American income inequality: Here are the highest and lowest earners in the Bay Area
When Jagtar Singh Kang immigrated with his family to the U.S. from the Indian region of Punjab in 1997, he was paid $8.50 an hour at his first job: working on an assembly line making catheters. It was just a few dollars above minimum wage at the time. 'When I came here, my financial situation was not very good. It was very hard to survive,' said Singh Kang, who lives in Fremont. Today, as an insurance and financial services agent, he makes about $300,000 annually. 'I'm a lucky man.' Singh Kang has experienced the kind of explosive income growth that has led Asian Americans to have the highest median income of all racial groups in the U.S. But he's also encountered many barriers that have kept wages largely stagnant for the lowest-paid among Asian Americans, who experience the highest income inequality of all U.S. racial groups, a 2018 report from Pew Research Center found. He's part of the Asian American ethnic subgroup — Punjabi Americans — that has the highest income inequality of all Asian ethnicities in the Bay Area, a new Chronicle analysis of 2023 U.S. census data found. The region more broadly has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the U.S. The diversity of the Bay Area's two million Asian Americans, who number among their ranks refugees and truck drivers, healthcare workers and software engineers, shows how the 'model minority' stereotype of Asian success doesn't capture the full experience of that racial group. It also offers insight into what helps and hinders upward economic mobility in the country's most expensive region. U.S.-born Asian Americans tend to do better economically than immigrants, research shows, while those who migrate with higher education, access to wealth and resources, English language abilities, family networks and social connections have greater odds of economic success. Nationwide, the income gap among Asian Americans has almost doubled from 1970 to 2016, the Pew report found, with the top 10% of Asian American earners making almost 11 times that of the bottom 10%. In the nine-county Bay Area, that disparity was even more pronounced as of 2023, with the highest-earners making almost 12 times that of the lowest-earners, a Chronicle analysis of U.S. census data found. 'It's not that those who make less are making much less than before,' said Ziyao Tian, a Pew Research Center sociologist. 'It's about the rich people getting a lot richer,' pointing to the Pew study that showed while the incomes of the top 90 th percentile of Asian Americans earners have more than doubled since 1970, those of the lowest-earning 10th percentile grew by only 11%. In the Bay Area, it's a similar story, with top earners' incomes supercharged by the tech industry boom. Income disparity among Asian groups often splits down ethnic lines in the Bay Area, the Chronicle found, with Indian and Taiwanese Americans seeing the highest median household incomes and Afghan, Tongan, Laotian, Hawaiian and Vietnamese Americans seeing the lowest. That economic diversity is reflective of the wide variety of immigration experiences. For instance, Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian refugees and their children who fled war and genocide in the 1970s and '80s started on a financial backfoot compared to immigrants who came with college degrees post-1990, when the H-1B visa for high-skill workers was created. ' When you think about the Laotian community, you have to think about the fact that it left during the aftermath of war,' said Somdeng Danny Thongsy, who came to the U.S. as an infant with his family in 1981. 'When we did resettle in the U.S., we're forced to live in an area that's historically stricken with redlining, with poverty.' His parents, who were rice farmers in Laos, found work on a farm, sewing clothing and working in a grocery store in Stockton, where they settled. 'Because of their limited English, they weren't able to get a full 9 to 5 job,' he said. Thongsy became influenced by those around him and dropped out of school at 16. After his brother, who'd been a mentor, was killed, he fell into depression, committed a crime and was incarcerated. In prison, he found Christianity through a chaplain and began a journey of healing that led him to get his GED. After being released, he enrolled in UC Berkeley in 2021, becoming the first and only person in his family to graduate from college. 'When people say, 'You got to bootstrap,' I mean yeah, you do the work, but it's also people that support you along the way,' Thongsy, who now lives in Alameda, said. He credited some of his success to the help he received from free mental health treatment at the Oakland nonprofit Center For Empowering Refugees and Immigrants. Within ethnic subgroups, there are also varying levels of inequality. Punjabi Americans in the Bay Area have the highest income inequality, with the top 10 th percentile of earners making almost 22 times that of bottom earners, followed by Chinese Americans, the Chronicle analysis found. Meanwhile, Indian and Filipino Americans see far less income inequality than average. University of Kansas sociologist ChangHwan Kim, who studies Asian American economic stratification, said a possible explanation is that Chinese and Punjabis have a much longer immigration history in the U.S. than their other Asian counterparts. Chinese migration to the Bay Area dates to the 19 th century Gold Rush while Punjabis fleeing British colonialism in the late 1890s settled to work in California farms and on railroads. 'With that kind of pattern of migration, the population could be more diverse,' he said, as many migrate not for job opportunities or higher education but to reunite with family. In the Bay Area, low-income Chinese immigrants have strong cultural, social and familial reasons to stay here, even when their job prospects aren't good. Nu Huynh, a Cantonese-speaking refugee from Vietnam, arrived in Oakland in 1986 with her family. She eventually enrolled in training to become a childcare worker but took two years instead of the normal one to graduate because she struggled with the English-language instruction. She worked for 12 years at a daycare in Oakland, earning $8.50 an hour, before retiring. She now lives in affordable housing managed by East Bay Local Development Corp. She said she doesn't know how she'd afford rent otherwise. 'The cost of living has gone up, but wages have not,' Huynh said in Cantonese. The 'model minority' stereotype is 'harmful' for advocacy efforts, said Joyce Lam, political director of the San Francisco-based organization Chinese Progressive Association, which advocates for low-income workers. 'You think the Chinese community doesn't need as much help as other communities because of those stereotypes,' she said. The most highly paid Asian Americans tend to also have the highest levels of educational attainment. In the Bay Area, 89% of Indian Americans have a bachelor's degree or higher. 'Asian Americans become successful through education,' said Kim, the sociologist. 'Contrary to this, the lowest-earning Asian Americans are those who came without much education.' But even for highly educated immigrants, not speaking English can place a ceiling on their upward mobility. Khatima Tamiz worked a well-paying job as a field data collector for a USAID contractor when the Taliban seized control of Kabul in 2021. She fled with her family, arriving in the U.S. in 2023 on a Special Immigrant Visa for Afghans who'd helped the U.S. in its war. Employers did not recognize her bachelor's degree in biology, she said. Juggling childcare and learning English, she also enrolled in a medical assistant licensing course. Her husband — who had a master's in human resources — started working as a security guard. He got laid off three months ago and has been driving Uber overnight since, making about $3,000 a month, while studying to be a nurse. 'We're in a bad situation,' she said. As a career coach for business executives, San Francisco resident Joyce Guan West spends a lot of time thinking about how to help people maximize their income. West immigrated as a baby with her parents from Shanghai in the 1980s. Her parents didn't speak English. Her dad's first job, in a factory, paid $3.33 an hour. 'I was literally thinking about it because I charge between $400 to $650 an hour for my coaching,' said West, who now makes about $400,000 a year. 'It's over 100 times more.' Although her parents were working class, her maternal grandparents had immigrated in the 1940s, attended UC Berkeley, had master's degrees, and owned rental properties and 'a nice house' in the El Cerrito hills, she said. 'Even though my immediate family was more of an immigrant experience, seeing the wealth my grandparents had raised my own level of what I expected out of life,' she said. She started her first business in college and sold her most recent one, a snack and beverage distributor called Buyer's Best Friend, in 2017 for several million dollars. When she married her now-ex-husband, a new world opened for her, she said. He grew up in Westchester County, a wealthy New York City suburb close to hedge funds and family offices, she said. 'I feel like that was just a training in how to develop executive presence, being around people who were used to a certain amount of wealth,' she said West acknowledged that her success is hard to replicate because of the advantages she had through her grandparents' privilege. But she said, 'My wish for more Asian Americans is that people get off the treadmill and tap into 'who am I?' when I'm not cranking it out.'
