Recovering strongly in 2009-2010 from the financial crisis, the Indian economy grew at a strong 7.4% pace in the fiscal year under review. This resilience demonstrates the underlying fundamental strength of the consumption driven Indian growth story.
Growth in private investments continue to lead the way to power India’s GDP growth and expectations are that the economy will very soon return to the pre-crisis trajectory of 8.5% to 9% year on year growth which will help retain India’s position as one of the fastest growing large economies of the world and also as one of the most preferred investment destinations globally.

As favorable economic fundamentals get transformed into better growth opportunities across sectors, media and distribution business are emerging as direct beneficiaries. With increasing penetration of TV and within those C&S households, the pay television distribution market is witnessing a momentous shift as the move from analog to digitally delivered content gathers rapid momentum. DTH television is leading this transformation with the overall market for DTH growing to more than 26 mn households representing around 24% of all cable and satellite homes in the country.

This momentum continues to be sustained and in the very near future India is poised to overtake the US to become the largest DTH market in the world.
Your company continues to maintain and strengthen its strong leadership position in this dynamic market. During the year under review dishtv added more than 1.8 mn subscribers and reached a total of 6.9 million at the end of the fiscal year.

In spite of intense competitive pressure, dishtv managed to deliver not only an outstanding top-line growth wherein total revenues grew from Rs 7.4 bn in FY’09 to Rs 10.9 bn in FY’10 representing a growth of 47%, but also strong growth in Operating margins which grew from negative in FY’09 to 8.7% in FY’10.
This we have achieved by a constant focus on providing value to the consumer while managing our costs and investments with the highest degree of efficiency that is possible.

During the year your company continued to take several initiatives designed to serve our customers better. We continue to strive to increase our distribution reach to make our product easily accessible to millions of consumers all over the country. dishtv now has a network of over 2000 distributors and more than 40,000 retailers where our product is easily available to the consumers.

dishtv continues to lead the way in providing innovative offers which provide great value to the customer. During the year under review, dishtv launched several such offerings such as Recharge Free, Zyada Recharge Zyada Return, Diwali Bumper where Platinum pack was provided at the price of Silver for the festive period. Silver Saver and Gold Saver packs were launched which while providing extra value to the consumers improved the pack mix and ARPU’s for the company.Your company continues to strive to bring the best content offerings to its consumers adding 19 channels during the year bringing the total channels and services offered on our platform to 265, making it the widest offering amongst all DTH platforms in India.

We continue to focus heavily on customer service and during the year expanded our service network to cover over 80 cities directly,and further improved our infrastructure to cover the remaining cities indirectly.
We further reinforced our leadership in the DTH marketplace through the launch of dishtv’s High Definition offering dish TruHD to coincide with the FIFA World Cup 2010. Dish TruHD is already available in over 100 top cities around the country and your company  is powering the consumer shift to the best quality digital viewing experience that is available in the market today.

India’s pay TV digital revolution is certainly upon us and in many ways the shift to digital DTH viewing is analogous to the momentous shift from landlines to wireless in the early part of this decade. This will throw up a myriad of opportunities, which your company is well placed to take advantage of from a position of strength and leadership. Competition has intensified, however this has only intensified our determination to lead through innovation and customer centricity, as we continue to build a world class company wholly committed to enhance value for all its stakeholders.