Friday, August 02, 2013: According to a report by 6Wresearch on the quarterly India STB market (Q1 2013), in spite of the relief given to local players by increasing 5 per cent custom duty on imports of STBs in India, domestic players are finding difficult to produce STBs in India due to the policies loopholes enjoyed by the international players.
The report revealed that the total shipments for STB in India amounted to 5.3 million units in Q12013. Skyworth leads the Indian set top box market, followed by Cisco, Coship and others. STBs which are imported are purchased directly by multi-system operators (MSOs) which in turn sell to the customers directly on a lease basis thus avoiding VAT.
However, local manufacturers are required to charge VAT on the production of STBs in India making their product less competitive in terms of cost and thus impacting their production of STBs in India.
