By Jonathan Easton
The Indian pay TV lost 370,000 DTH subscribers in the final quarter of 2021.
According to figures published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), DTH subscribers decreased from 68.89 million in Q3 to 68.52 million at the end of Q4. The Q3 figure was the lowest DTH subscriber level in India since Q2 2019 (68.92 million), with the Covid-19 pandemic leading to pay TV growth across the globe in 2020.
The DTH market is dominated by four operators who each have a significant share. Tata Sky is the largest with 33.48 per cent of the market, followed by Bharti Telemedia at 26.37 per cent. Dish TV India and Sun Direct TV are in third and fourth respectively, with 22.04 per cent and 18.11 per cent shares of the market.
By contrast to the DTH market, the cable TV sector features a much larger number of operators. As of December 31 2021, there are 1753 MSOs registered with MIB. Of that total, there are 12 MSOs & 1 HITS operator who have a subscriber base greater than one million.
GTPL Hathway leads the pack here with 1.9 million, followed by Siti Networks with 7.4 million.
Other multi-million subscriber MSOs/HITS operators include Hathway Digital, Den Networks and Thamizhaga Cable TV Communication.
