Neil Bierbaum
SUPPLIERS of satellite dishes and decoders are advising consumers to wait for an expected reduction in import duties before ordering the new technology — but if there is a rush, manufacturers may not be able to meet the demand.
The current 77,5 percent duty on satellite receiving equipment is expected to come down to about 10 percent. “Rumours have been around since last year November,” says Paul Glass, executive chairman of Aerial Empire, which is supplying retailers with receiving equipment. “We hear every week that it will be gazetted ‘on Friday’. In the meantime we have our product in bond and what we take out we pay for.”
“We are receiving hundreds of calls a day,” says Teljoy marketing director Marq Roberts, “but we are advising customers to hold on. The decoders are still in bond and won’t be released until the import duties are reduced.”
The digital integrated receiver decoders (IRDs), which will be necessary to receive the MultiChoice bouquet of channels from PAS4, are produced by Pace in the United Kingdom for international markets. Panasonic will also be producing digital IRDs for MultiChoice in Cape Town under the Panasat brand name.
Even if this receiving equipment is released soon, growing demand for digital IRDs in the East, Canada and Australia could squeeze South African consumers out of the market, with IRDs gone by the time the South Africans are ready for them.
Based on initial inquiries, Roberts is anticipating “20 000 to 30 000 potential subscribers to the digital PAS4 service by December”.
Teljoy is aiming to rent IRDs to 30 percent of this market. “Based on the product we have been allocated, I think the market is capable of supplying the lower figure,” he says, “but there would be shortages if demand reached 30 000 by year end”. He says manufacturers have assured him that by the end of January the product should be readily available.
Analogue equipment — which will be necessary to receive SABC channels and the existing M-Net channel from PAS4, as well as for the channels which have been promised on Intelsat 704 — is widely available on international markets and shortages are not expected to be a problem. The cost of this equipment will also be affected by changes in import duties.
No accurate figures are available on the installation of dishes aimed at Intelsat 704, but claims vary between 40 000 and 60 000. Most of these have been installed by small family operations of the sort that installed M-Net decoders in the early days of the pay station. The exact number will only become known once the channels become encoded and viewers are forced to pay a monthly fee.
At the moment the African Satellite Entertainment Corporation (Asec), which promised four channels off Intelsat 704 by the beginning of this month, is behind schedule and only two channels are available. It is believed that financial difficulties are the reason for this delay. It seems, however, that the announcement of an investor is imminent. It is believed that former racehorse breeders Oakfields are involved. There has been no reponse from the Asec offices.
Roberts adds that most of the inquiries have followed mailings to existing Teljoy TV and cellular phone clients. To his surprise, there have been more queries out of the television database than the cellular database, which he believes is an indication that the market could be less purely A-income than everyone expects.