Vishwanath Kulkarni

New Delhi, Oct. 25

Rural India now accounts for close to half of the sales for direct-to-home (DTH) operators, such as Dish TV and Airtel Digital. Branded as 'cable-dark' or 'cable-dry' areas where the penetration of cable network is either weak or nil, the rural areas are hooking on to DTH service at a faster clip than their urban counterparts as the operators expand their market reach.

"Half of our sales are from the rural areas," said Mr Salil Kapoor, Chief Operating Officer, Dish TV, the market leader with a subscriber base of over 8.4 million customers.

Industry estimates suggest that the operators are adding close to a million new connections every month, and the total DTH subscriber base has crossed the 25-million mark. This growth is set to accelerate further with the repackaging of prices and the attractive offers that operators have launched for the ensuing festive season.

"Forty per cent of our sales is from the rural or 'cable-dark' market as against nil some two years ago, when we launched our service," said Mr Sugato Banerji, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Digital. The metros account for 25-26 per cent of Airtel Digital's sales, while the Tier-I and Tier-II cities account for the rest. Analyst said that declining product prices coupled with widening distribution reach and increasing regional content is helping these operators enhance their market share. The prices of a new connection, which ranged around Rs 1,700 last year, have now fallen below the Rs 1,000 mark, with the majority of the players pricing their products in the Rs 890-990 range.

Mr Banerji believes that volume growth for DTH players will be largely driven by the rural market going forward. Airtel has ramped up its distribution network with over 75,000 outlets effectively covering almost all districts in the country, he said. Research firm Media Partners Asia has forecast that India is poised to become the world's largest DTH pay TV market by 2012 with over 36 million connections, over taking the US. The Indian DTH subscriber base is set to grow from 17 million in 2009 to 45 million in 2014 and 58 million by 2020.