Tata Sky and Dish TV lose subscriber market share as Airtel and Sun Direct gain in Q1 FY21

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has released the quarterly report of subscriber figures for the DTH sector for the quarter ended on 30th June 2020. As per the report, the total subscriber base of pay DTH operators increased marginally by 0.32 million quarter on quarter, to reach 70.58 million in the March quarter (It was 70.26 million in the quarter ended 31st March 2020).

DTH operator wise market share:

• Tata Sky continues to lead the sector with 32.09% subscriber market share (22.64 million active subscribers) even though it lost over 70 thousand active subscribers in the quarter ended June 2020.
• Dish TV retains the second spot with 28.67% subscriber market share (20.23 million active subscribers) even though it lost over 4.8 lakh active subscribers in Q1 FY21.
• Airtel DTH retains the third spot with 23.83% subscriber market share (16.81 million active subscribers) as the operator managed to add over 2 active lakh new DTH subscribers in the quarter.
• Sun Direct retains the fourth position with 15.41% subscriber market share (10.87 million active subscribers) as the operator managed to add over 6.7 lakh active DTH subscribers in the quarter.

It is worth noting that the active subscriber count does not include subscribers whose accounts have been inactive for more than 90 days. Also the subscriber market share figures are only reported for Pay DTH operators and do not include the subscriber count of DD free dish.