Tuesday, December 11, 2007

IPTV Spending

"AT&T expects to spend between $4.5 billion and $5 billion on U-verse through 2008. The deployment is expected to reduce 2008 earnings by 12 to 14 cents a share."

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071211/at_t_analysts.html

"Bharti would be investing Rs 150 crore in the initial phase."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Airtel_to_venture_into_IPTV_DTH/articleshow/2478365.cms

Here is the well known $500m Reliance-Microsoft pact...

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Nov05/0,4670,IndiaRelianceMicrosoftTV,00.html


UT has won Bharti but probably not Reliance. The spending above definitely is not only for the iptv equipment but overall buildouts but the fact that amounts are huge shows the committment of suppliers and operators to iptv.

AT&T only has 126k subscribers at the end of Sept compared to UTs over 600k subscribers right now. AT&T is targetting 1 million by end of 2008. UT could have 2-3 million by end of 2008. The figure from Bharti is about $35 million for their "initial phase". We are not sure what this figure consists of or if this is for the 150k initial subscriber target. Reliance's $500m for the software is staggering. How can they recoup this? In any case, UT will get their share and the trend is growth in iptv will be huge. Also, if the iptv equipment by others do not work or do not scale, UT may have a shot at taking over. The high cost by other systems and the fact that UTs can scale and has been tested worldwide and been around shows this is very possible and would be a major development.