Dish TV has announced that it is making and already selling its Make in India set-top boxes, with the first batch of its locally manufactured direct-to-home streaming boxes rolling out to Dish TV’s latest customers right now. Underlining its new product strategy in alignment with the ‘vocal for local’ narrative, Dish TV says that alongside rolling out its first batch of made in India STBs, the company also plans to move the manufacturing of at least 50 percent of all its boxes to India within March 2021.
In terms of the full manufacturing process, Dish TV India has said that it will step up its local manufacturing initiative more intensively in the coming months, and will involve manufacturing or procuring components for the set-top boxes from Indian manufacturers and suppliers. At the moment, Dish TV is making the housing for the boxes, and will soon procure the power adapter for its boxes from Indian supplier partners, too. The brand also states that it is in “advanced stage talks” to procure remote controls for its set-top boxes from Indian partners.
Jawahar Goel, CMD, Dish TV India, said upon the announcement, “We aim to further expand our business operations and develop products that match the intrinsic needs of our customers. With the vision of ‘Make in India’, we reiterate our commitment to producing quality products and are confident that we can achieve several industry firsts.”
The company believes that shifting its production chain to India will also help it streamline its supply chain operations. On this, Anil Dua, group CEO of Dish TV India said, “Customer needs are evolving rapidly. As we refresh our STB range with a new set of connected devices and hybrid options, working with local design, development and production are definitely going to be a competitive edge for our business.”
Dish TV is now the second Indian direct-to-home television operator that has started manufacturing set-top boxes in India, after Tata Sky announced its Make in India initiative earlier this year, in August.
