Sunil Mittal, Founding Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, seems to be bracing his DTH business to give tough fight to Mukesh Ambani‘s Reliance Jio which recently acquired, Hathway Cable & Datacom and DEN Networks, two of the largest cable operators in the DTH space.
As per the market speculations, Bharti Airtel is in close talks with Dish TV, to merge its DTH business with Airtel Digital TV. Although, the talks are in the initial stage, the telecom giant is seeking merger so that it can give fight to growing clout of Reliance Jio in DTH market.
If the on going efforts bears fruit then this will become world’s largest entity in DTH space with over 38 million subscribers. The merged entity will have 61% share in Indian DTH market.
Dish TV market cap as of 15th March is at ₹7,263.75 crore, which is very low compared to its valuation, which was at ₹17,000 crore when it merged with Videocon DTH
However, both the companies denied to comment on the on going market speculations.
Airtel, earlier tried to sell its DTH business to Tata Sky which is valued between ₹11,000-₹12,000 crore but the deal could’t reach any conclusion. In December 2017, Airtel sold 20% stake in Bharti Telemedia, the holding company of Airtel TV, to private equity firm Warburg Pincus for $350 million (₹2,258 crore), valuing the DTH business at ₹11,300 crore.
The DTH giant Dish TV has largest share in DTH space-37%, while Airtel has 24% share. As per third quarter data, it has 23.6 million subscribers and reported operating revenue of ₹1,517.4 crore, EBIDTA of ₹517.6 crore with ARPU (average revenue per user) at ₹200.
While Airtel Digital TV has a higher ARPU of ₹231 with 15 million subscribers as per its Q3 report. The company reported revenue of ₹1,033 crore, while EBITDA and margins were at ₹382.6 crore and 37%.