Mumbai: Net active pay subscribers of major DTH operators have risen by 4.91 million net pay active subscribers in the year 2017 to take the total base to 67.56 million for the year ended 31 December.
According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) performance indicator report for the year 2017, this is a growth of 7.83% over the previous calendar year.
However, the major six direct to home (DTH) operators namely Dish TV , Tata Sky , Airtel Digital TV , Videocon d2h , Sun Direct and Reliance Digital had added 6.67 million net pay active subscribers in 2016. The subscriber addition in the year 2017 is lower than the year 2016 . The net active pay subscriber base increased by 12% compared to 2015 when the base was 55.98 million.
The government owned Prasar Bharati also operates free DTH service called DD Free Dish, which has 22 million customers for itself.
While Dish TV and Videocon d2h have merged operations to become the biggest TV distribution platform in the country, w.e.f 22nd March, the market share of each DTH operator is as follows, Dish TV and Tata Sky ended the year with 24% share each followed by Airtel Digital TV (21%), Videocon d2h (19%), Sun Direct (10%), and Reliance Digital TV (2%).
The share of Tata Sky and Airtel Digital TV has increased when compared to the previous year. The market share in 2016 stood at Dish TV (25%), Tata Sky (23%), Airtel Digital TV (20%), Videocon d2h (20%), and Sun Direct (10%) and Reliance Digital TV (2%).
The ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) has permitted a total of 877 private satellite TV channels for uplinking only/downlinking/uplinking as on 31st December.
With growing subscribers’ rate, the DTH market is expected to have huge growth in the coming years
