The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has released the quarterly report of subscriber figures for the DTH sector for the quarter ended on 31st March 2020. As per the report, the total subscriber base of pay DTH operators increased marginally by 0.28 million quarter on quarter, to reach 70.26 million in the March quarter (It was 69.98 million in the quarter ended 31st December 2019).
Tata Sky leads the race with 32.33% market share which translates to 22.71 million, it is closely followed by Dish TV (Including D2H) with a market share of 29.49% which translates to 20.71 million. Third in the queue is Bharti Telemedia (Airtel DTH) which commands 23.65% market share which works out to 16.61 million and finishing last we have Sun Direct TV with 14.53% market share which comes up to 10.2 million subscribers.
“The TRAI report shows that Tata Sky has been consistently gaining market share and subscribers at a pace that is faster than any other platform. We believe this can be attributed to our customer-centric outlook. The overall increase in DTH subscribers is also a great sign for the M&E sector.” Commented a Tata Sky spokesperson on the report
It is important to note that previously (up to March 2019) the subscription figure of total active subscribers included inactive and temporarily suspended subscribers for not more than last 120 days. However as per new regulatory framework of Broadcasting and Cable TV Services, the total active subscribers are counted including only those subscribers which are inactive/ temporarily suspended for not more than the last 90 days.
Hope NTO 2.0 is firmly established and these numbers will further increase.