In an industry where the usual talk is of ”millions” and even “billions” of dollars it is all too easy to forget that – at least in India – subscribers pay just pennies for their TV service. Yesterday (July 29) Airtel Digital TV said that it had raised its ARPU by 17 Rupees (US 28 cents) in the quarter to June 30th, and taking the overall ARPU to Rs214 ($3.55 a month).

This isn’t a king’s ransom, but it shows that progress can be made. Airtel cited more HD subs and an upselling of extra digital bundles for the improvement.  Airtel added 376,000 subs, compared to 205,000 in Q1, and 352,000 in the same Q3 last year. The platform now has 9.4 million subs. Churn has also improved from 0.9 per cent per month to 0.6 per cent.

Airtel Digital TV offers some 400 TV channels including 20 HDTV channels.

Arch-rival Dish TV added 332,000 subs in Q2 taking its total to 11.7 million.

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