India’s telecoms regulator (TRAI) says India’s six DTH platforms are now reaching more than 54.52 million pay-TV subscribers (as at Dec 31st) and well ahead of most forecasters’ expectations.  In June 2012 the DTH numbers were no more than 48.1 million homes. Most industry observers now expect India’s 100 million DTH subscribers to hit 100 million homes by 2018 with the country becoming the largest DTH market in the world.

India’s DTH operators are carrying a maximum of 267 channels drawn from a portfolio of 823 private TV channels in addition to those from India’s Doordarshan public broadcaster.  India’s (now older) cable TV systems carry a maximum of 100 channels.  There are 184 pure pay-TV channels.

The data comes from a period when the digitisation of India’s cable systems was just starting, and it is known that the period since the start of 2013 has seen considerable growth benefits as people sign up for DTH service.

A recent Media Partners Asia report suggested that India’s DTH market would grow three-fold and revenues increase to $3.9 billion by 2017, and $5.3 billion by 2020. MPA’s report said India’s DTH market would expand to 76.6 million by 2020.

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