The strongly growing domestic direct-to-home broadcast market (DTH) may soon catapult India into the number one position globally in terms of the country with largest DTH subscribers base, ahead of the US, an industry official said.
As at June 30 this year, India had 23.5 million DTH subscribers.
"As at June-end, the DTH subscriber base in India stood at 23.5 million, which is equivalent to the size of the markets in other countries.
By this year-end, we will leave the US behind, which has got 32 million subscribers base, making us the largest DTH country," Bharat Business Channel Limited (BBCL) Chief Executive Officer, Anil Khera, told PTI here.
BBCL is the DTH broadcast arm of the multi-billion Videocon Group.
There are currently seven DTH broadcast service providers in the country with a combined revenue of around $2 billion.
The industry is clocking an 18% growth this year as compared to last year, Khera said, adding, "every month around 8.50 lakh new customers are coming in across the DTH platform."
The industry expects to register around 11-12 million new customers in this year, Khera said.
"We are quite hopeful that once the festival season sets in with Onam in August followed by Ganesh Chaturthi Durga Puja, Diwali and Christmas, we will definitely see 12 million new customers coming in this year," Khera said.
Last month itself, close to one million, precisely 9.55 lakh subscribers were added in the market, he said.
At least 15% of this growth is understood to have come from football aficionados as the mega-sporting event was also seen in places such as Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore apart from the traditional football bastions of the east, north-east and Kerala, Khera said.
Videocon, which presently has one million DTH subscribers, plans to add 2.5 million connections this year to its network, Khera said, adding, "around 55-60% of this will come from the rural market."
"The growth will come from across cities and regions. But we are now focusing on 6,000 towns activation," he said.
Besides, the company was eyeing the cable-dry market such as North east and other hilly regions to expand its network, he said, adding, "We are looking at a 21 per cent growth in its DTH business this year.
