Dish TV eyes 10 mn subscribers by March 2011

DTH major Dish TV today said it aims to add three million subscribers this fiscal to take its subscriber base to 10 million by March 2011.

The company today also announced that it has crossed the eight million subscribers mark.

"The eight-million mark has helped us re-look at our targets. We now look ahead to exit the current fiscal with a three million strong subscriber addition," Dish TV Chief Executive Officer R C Venkateish said.

This would take the total subscriber base to 10 million subscribers by fiscal-end, he added.

Dish TV had closed last fiscal with 6.9 million subscribers, adding 1.8 million users during the year.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2010, the Essel Group company had added 0.64 million new subscribers, taking the base to 7.5 million.

Dish TV is one of the seven players in the Indian DTH market. Other operators include Tata Sky, Sun Direct, Airtel Digital, Reliance Big TV, DD Direct and Videocon d2h.

According to industry analysts, the DTH platform is poised for rapid growth with players expected to about 10 million new customers annually.