MUMBAI: As a result of being the major beneficiaries of cable television digitisation in the country, direct to home (DTH) operators in January have seen an increase of 62 per cent in their subscriber base, with states like Jharkhand, West Bengal and Jammu & Kashmir being the major contributors as per Chrome Data Analytics & Media.

While Jharkhand’s DTH subscriber base jumped to 54 per cent in January from a meagre one per cent; in West Bengal, where there was almost nil DTH penetration, a jump to 42 per cent has been seen. Jammu & Kashmir, on the other hand, upped its DTH subscriber base from 22 per cent to 61 per cent post the Digital Addressable System (DAS) Phase III deadline of 31 December, 2015.

Bihar followed next with a 32 per cent jump in DTH subscriber base. The state’s 13 per cent DTH penetration has now has increased to 45 per cent.

With a 31 per cent jump in subscriber base, Gujarat’s DTH penetration now stands at 34 per cent, while Chhastisgarh registered a hike of 22 per cent and achieved 39 per cent DTH penetration in January.

Karnataka’s DTH subscriber base saw an increase of 12 per cent with the state achieving 21 per cent DTH penetration. While Goa saw a 11 per cent jump at 21 per cent. 

With an increase ranging from four - 10 per cent, the DTH penetration percentage in other states stood as follows: Uttar Pradesh - 78 per cent, Haryana - 32 per cent, Rajasthan - 41 per cent, Punjab - 22 per cent and Uttrakhand - 45 per cent as per Chrome Data Analytics & Media.

As of 30 June, 2015 there were 78.74 million registered DTH subscribers, of which only 39.74 million were active subscriber being served by six private DTH operators. As of October 2015, the market share of these DTH operators was as follows: Dish TV - 27 per cent, Tata Sky - 20 per cent, Airtel Digital - 19 per cent, Videocon d2h - 16 per cent, Sun Direct - 12 per cent and Big TV - six per cent.

As of 31 December, 2015, while Dish TV’s subscriber base stood at 1.4 crore, Videocon d2h boasted of 1.13 crore subscribers and Airtel Digital TV had 1.11 crore subscribers. The subscriber numbers for Tata Sky, Sun Direct and and Big TV are not known.

Now with the share of DTH subscribers increasing across the country, it will be interesting to note, which operator has benefited the maximum with DAS Phase III. 

What's more, despite the stay by the High Court in five states on the implementation of DAS Phase III due to shortage of set top boxes (STBs), there has been a successful 50 per cent digitisation for phase III across the country according to Chrome.

It may be recalled that earlier this year, Chrome had claimed that post the Phase III deadline of 31 December, 2015, over 70 per cent digitisation had been achieved when analogue signals were completely switched off in various cities. However, the company has now revised its figures in the wake of analog signals being switched on again in various states, which has been stated as the cause for the steep fall in digitisation percentage in a place like Goa.

According to the revised data provided by Chrome, three states namely Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Punjab have achieved more than 90 per cent digitisation as of January 2016.

Below is the percentage of digitisation achieved by Indian states in descending order:

Andhra Pradesh - 94 per cent

Kerala - 93.5 per cent

Punjab - 90 per cent

Uttar Pradesh - 89.2 per cent

Bihar - 68.4 per cent

Haryana - 66.7 per cent

Goa - 64.9 per cent

Rajasthan - 64.2 per cent

Jammu & Kashmir - 61.2 per cent

West Bengal - 60 per cent

Jharkhand - 59.5 per cent

Chhattisgarh - 56.2 per cent

Uttarakhand - 53.4 per cent

Karnataka - 51.8 per cent

Gujarat - 51.6 per cent