Dear Shareholders,
We all continue to be excited with the huge opportunity for the cable & broadband
business. With a strong and empowered leadership team, DEN is right there in exploiting
this opportunity to maximize shareholder value and we welcome the coming year with
Digitization as the focus.
The Indian Economy growth picked up in FY’14-15, inflation markedly declined, and
the external position was comfortable, helped by positive policies and lower global oil
prices. With a stable government and pro-growth policy reforms, India is expected to drive
itself home through more and consistent GDP growth in the subsequent years.
The year 2014 has been a turning point for the media and entertainment industry in
India many ways. One of the major highlights in 2014 was the announcement of ‘Digital
India: A programme to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge
economy‘ by the government. Another trending phenomenon is Internet-Of-Things (IOT)
which aims to interconnect household devices like TV ACs, Microwaves, Fridge, Cameras etc.
to provide remote access and control. All these are signs of a technical revolution and
development in India which can be achieved only through Digitization.
The rollout of digital cable STBs in Phases I and II cities is now complete and the
stage is set for introduction of new age facilities like channel packaging, online bill
payment, HD channels, Broadband etc.
With successful completion of Phases I and II, the roadmap is clear for Phases III and
IV Government support for Digital India provides a conducive environment for timely
completion of Phases III and IV We are adequately prepared and well capitalized for the
opportunity and are consolidating operations, setting up business processes and systems,
working on STB procurement and putting logistics in place to handle the huge scale STB
roll out.
Broadband is another huge opportunity area. Wired broadband connections in the country
are expected to grow up from 20 million in 2014 to 32 million in 2019. Globally, DOCSIS
(Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) is the predominant technology used for
cable broadband and has higher speed and lower investment advantage over the DSL (Digital
Subscriber Line) technologies used by telecom operators which require significantly less
investment, but had speed limitations. We have soft launched our high speed broadband
services and have crossed 3.3L Homes Passed with ~23,000 broadband subscribers.
We also forayed into TV Shopping and Soccer this fiscal year. TV shopping in India is
almost a 4,000-5,000 crore market. Our TV shopping JV between DEN and Snapdeal brings
tremendous synergies because we are able to leverage our reach in distribution and our
capabilities on the video side to drive the front end activities and Snapdeals brand
merchandising and strong back-end allows state of the art infrastructure. The JV has a
reach of more than 25m Homes and has started clocking annualised GMV of more than ~120
Crores.
On the soccer side, DEN, through its wholly owned subsidiary, acquired Delhi Dynamos
FC, one of the most popular teams of the ISL with a fan base of over 425,000 (based on
Facebook likes) and over 29,000 Twitter followers. The inaugural season of the Indian
Super League (ISL) generated huge audience interest with overall season viewership
reaching 429 million. The ISL also became Asia’s No.1 League and the worlds No. 4
League by stadium attendance attracting an average of 26,000+ spectators every match.
I would like to place on record my sincere appreciation to the Board of Directors for
their guidance. I would also like to express my gratitude to all our stakeholders for
their continuing faith in DEN.
With best wishes,
Sameer Manchanda
Chairman Managing Director