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Our Bureau

New Delhi, Oct. 22 Sun Direct, the Direct-to-Home arm of the Sun Group, is gearing up with an investment of Rs 150 crore this fiscal to win over north Indian markets with “reasonably” priced offerings.

The company is hoping to take its 2.7-million customer base to 3 million, and two-thirds of these are expected to come from these new markets, said Mr Tony D’Silva, CEO, Sun Direct.

According to Mr D’Silva, Sun Direct is acquiring 2 lakh new subscribers a month in the southern markets where it’s a leader.

After Gujarat and Punjab, Sun Direct has now announced its services for the National Capital Region. “Our strategy has been very simple. We are going to offer to the consumer whatever he watches, at a reasonable price,” said Mr D’Silva.

For Rs 999, the service offers 130 channels, including those from the Sun Network, for 10 months. The set-top box is for free. It also offers add-on packages ranging from Rs 10 to 115.

“There are two routes, a service provider can subsidise the content or the hardware. We don’t need to subsidise the content because we are acquiring channels on an a-la-carte basis, or choosing individual channels from broadcasters,” explained Mr D’Silva.

The services do not include sports channels due to ongoing litigation.

According to Mr D’Silva, Sun Direct has received a TDSAT ruling in its favour for a case against MSM Discovery Pvt Ltd, the distributors of Sony and Set Max amongst others.

The company will be spending around Rs 6.5 crore to advertise services in the NCR.

“We may not have the advantages that we have down South, but we have for our launches in Gujarat and Punjab used the media very effectively, we would be doing the same in the Capital,” said Mr D’Silva.

It plans to go to the eastern markets next. “We are setting up our distribution system. We have set up offices in Kolkata, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and New Delhi. Distributors and dealers are being appointed,” said D’Silva.

Currently focussed on “reaching out to masses with an economical offering”, Sun Direct also has plans to offer higher value products, such as personal video recorders, and services in the future. “We could very well be the first to launch High Definition boxes once channels get their licences,” said Mr D’Silva.

Sun Direct’s STBs run on mpeg4 DVB technology and, points out Mr D’Silva, they also have transponder capacity allocated for HD services. Sun Direct plans to introduce interactive and other value-added services, such as video-on-demand, once it has acquired a pan-Indian presence.

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