Tata Sky to manufacture set-top boxes in India

Over the past couple of months, there has been an increased push for Made in India products in the market. Government has helped this movement gain momentum by introducing schemes like PLI that incentivise companies for manufacturing their products in India. In the past one month, Wistron has announced its plans of manufacturing the iPhone SE 2020 in India. In addition to that, other companies such as Samsung, Lava and Dixon have committed to producing mobile devices and components worth ₹11 lakh crore in the country. Joining the brigade, Tata Sky today announced that it would be manufacturing set-top boxes in India.

Tata Sky, which is one of the leading DTH players in the country, on Friday announced that it has partnered with Technicolor to shift a significant part of its set-top box sourcing business to within the country. The company said that it would manufacture set-top boxes for the Indian market in India. This means that the Tata Sky set-top box that you buy in future could be made and distributed locally.

Tata Sky hasn’t detailed a timeline as to when it will shift its set-top box manufacturing business to India. But, whenever it does make the switch, it is expected to have a huge impact on the prices of the Tata Sky set-top boxes sold in the country.

At present, Tata Sky offers four set-top boxes in India. While the Tata Sky Binge pack is available for ₹3,999, the HD set-top box is available for ₹1,499. There is a Tata Sky+ HD box that costs ₹4,999 and an SD set-top box that costs ₹3,999. These prices are expected to come down when the company starts manufacturing set-top boxes in India as no import duty will be levied on them. However, we will have to wait for the company to clarify the specifics once the manufacturing starts in India.

“As the world adjusts to the rapid changes emerging due to the recent effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tata Sky and Technicolor Connected Home are realigning production of a group of set-top boxes (STBs) to India by early 2021,” Harit Nagpal, MD and CEO of Tata Sky said on this occasion.