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Andrew Bonwick
Vice President of Product Development at Relm Insurance
Madhav Sheth
CEO of Ai+ Smartphone
Stephen Rose
CEO Render Networks
It seems that Mukesh Ambani led telecom operator Reliance Jio is causing a stir in every industry it is stepping foot on. After disrupting the telecom and cellular space, now the company is planning to roll out DTH services thus hinting the other companies to put up a strong front in advance for when Reliance Jio rolls out its services. It is notable that Reliance Jio has already bought massive stakes in cable companies Hathway Cable and Datacom and DEN Networks. With the buzz of the merger already ringing in the industry, Sunil Bharti Mittal led telco Bharti Airtel might also be looking ahead towards consolidation with Dish TV for its DTH wing Airtel Digital TV.
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Discussions Currently in Exploratory Stage
According to a report by ET Telecom, one person aware of the matter said that the talks are in an exploratory stage. The other person aware of the issue said, “The idea is to consolidate operations and give a strong fight to Reliance Jio. Together, Airtel Digital TV and Dish TV will be a giant.” If the merger goes through then, Airtel Digital TV and Dish TV will together make the world’s largest TV distribution company with 38 million subscribers and 61% DTH market share in India.
When posed with questions, Airtel and Dish TV both replied to ET saying that they won’t comment on market speculation. To recall, it was back in March last year when Videocon D2h and Dish TV merged thus starting the consolidation in the DTH industry. Also, Airtel had tried to sell its DTH wing to Tata Sky before, but the deal could not go through. In December 2017, however, Airtel sold 20% stake in the parent firm of Airtel Digital TV, Airtel Telemedia to private equity firm Warburg Pincus. The stake was valued at $350 million (Rs 2,258 crore) which evaluated the DTH company at Rs 11,300 crore.
