Sun TV Network posted a better than expected performance as all the segments of the company put up a strong show. Advertising revenues grew by 7.4% y-o-y and 12% q-o-q as most of the client verticals spent more on advertising during the festive quarter as well as due to Sun TV’s strengthening presence in all the four geographies.
DTH revenues showed a very strong traction by growing 17.7% y-o-y and 11% q-o-q despite digital addressable system (DAS) implementation getting delayed as subscribers as well as realisations improved. Analog revenues also surprisingly grew by 6% and 17% y-o-y and q-o-q respectively as viewership share improved. Thus, overall domestic subscription income grew by 14% y-o-y and 13% q-o-q. In the absence of IPL franchise fees and reduction in cost of revenues, ebitda margins bloomed to 77.5%, a growth of 430 bps y-o-y.
Sun’s ad revenues in Q3 grew by 7.4% y-o-y and 12% q-o-q after it started growing from Q2FY15. This growth has come on the back of good market share growth in TN, Kerala and Karnataka. Also from AP markets the ad growth has started ticking as viewership market share improved on the back of couple of new fiction serials starting over there.
In TN market the company maintained its Number 1 position by a huge margin, but in markets like Karnataka and Kerala too movie content led to its outperformance. Secondly, in last quarter, allowance to increase ad inventory by the regulatory body was very positive news for Sun.
By LKP Research