Dish TV revenues up 49% to Rs 258 crore

DIRECT-TO-HOME (DTH) service provider Dish TV on Tuesday said it will continue to reduce its losses in the coming quarters without disclosing a time frame by when it would start making net profit. The company reduced its net loss by two thirds to Rs 56.1 crore during the quarter ended September, over the year ago period, due to reduction in distribution and content costs, besides adding new subscribers.      Its total revenues grew 48.5% to Rs 257.5 crore, compared to Rs 173.3 crore in the same period last year, as it added 4.07 lakh new subscribers in the quarter to take the gross subscriber numbers to 59.19 lakh. "We are planning to increase our channel capacity and add new channels to raise subscription revenues," said Jawahar Goyal, managing director, Dish TV.      Dish TV — that claims to have a market share of 38% in the DTH market, which has around half a dozen new players over the past 2-3 years — said the total DTH subscriber base will increase to 20-21 million by the end of this fiscal, and it expects to gain a large share of the growing subscriber base.      Talking about the fund raising plans, Mr Goyal said the company has received the approval of foreign investment promotion board (FIPB) to raise up to $200 million through Global Depository Receipt (GDRs) or Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds (FCCBs), but is yet to decide when and how to raise the funds. FIPB is the nodal body that clears foreign investments in India.