The direct-to-home (DTH) space is likely to witness a price war as operators like Tata Sky, Dish TV and Sun Direct offer discounts on new connections to cash in on the festive season.
According to industry analysts, the DTH market is growing at about 20-25 per cent, with additions from the rural market. Hence, DTH players are designing packages keeping in mind the rural consumers.
Tata Sky and Airtel digital TV (the DTH arm of the Bharti Airtel) have already slashed the price of the set top boxes to below Rs 1,000.
"The aim is to make the STBs as affordable as possible and drive digitisation. Rural markets is a big opportunity and a major portion of our monthly additions are coming from the smaller towns," Tata Sky Chief Marketing Officer Vikram Mehra told PTI.
Following suit, country's largest DTH firm Dish TV today said that it will offer new connections at Rs 990, along with channel vouchers worth Rs 990.
It is also offering HD connections at Rs 2,990, which will include two months subscription along with other offers.
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"Consumer sentiments are buoyant during the festive season and they tend to splurge more on consumer electronics. Dish TV plans to cash on this opportunity with attractive consumer promotion offer," Dish TV COO Salil Kapoor said.
Sun Direct, the country's second largest player, has also slashed prices of its set top box to Rs 890.
According to sectoral regulator TRAI, the DTH subscriber base has grown to 23.77 million viewers by the end of June quarter from 21.3 million users in the previous quarter.
The Indian market has seven DTH players -- Dish TV, Sun Direct, Tata Sky, Airtel digital TV, Reliance BIG TV, Videocon d2h and DD Direct.
The six DTH licensees (excluding DD Direct) reported subscriber base of 23.77 million (for the quarter ended June 2010) as against 21.3 million at the end of March 2010, indicating the popularity of the digital service.
Apart from the set top boxes, the companies are also packaging the channels to suit the customer's pockets.
While Tata Sky launched Truchoice, where the base price offered was Rs 150, Sun Direct has been offering basic services at Rs 99 per month for some time now.
India has a total television population of close to 135 million, of which 80 per cent have access to cable and satellite. Industry players peg the total DTH subscriberbase at about 23-25 million.