KOLKATA: The direct-to-home (DTH) subscriber base in India has reached a base of around 70.99 million in 2020, according to the Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicator Report October-December 2020 published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). This points to an addition of around one million subscribers in the year.

While the total active DTH subscriber base stands at 70.99 million as of 31 December 2020, the segment had reported a base of 69.98 million for the last quarter of 2019.

Tata Sky is leading the DTH segment with 33.03 per cent market share. It has marginally increased its market share of 32.58 per cent from July-September (2020) quarter. Airtel’s DTH arm has almost closed its gap with Dish TV with the former holding 25.17 per cent market share, and the latter gaining 25.45 per cent market share. Sun TV’s DTH arm has also improved its position with 16.35 per cent market share compared to 15.83 per cent in the previous quarter.

As on 31 December 2020, there are 1,704 MSOs registered with the ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB), as against 1,613 multi-system operators (MSO) at the end of 2019. There were 1,697 MSOs including two provisional MSOs at the end of the previous quarter. Further, TRAI data indicates that there are 12 MSOs and one HITS operator who have subscriber bases greater than one million. Siti Networks, GTPL Hathway and Hathway are the top three players in this category.

A total of 907 private satellite TV channels have been permitted by MIB for uplinking, downlinking, as on 31 December 2020. There are 326 pay TV channels including 233 SD channels and 93 HD channels and 581 free-to-air channels.