MUMBAI:India‘s pay TV operators are coming of age. And they are bursting on to the global pay TV scene, if one goes by data released by researcher SN L Kagan for 2012. Almost four of them feature in the top 10 list for Asia Pacific. Amongst these figure: Dish TV, DEN Networks, Siti Cable and Tata Sky.
According to the SNL Kagan report, DishTV with 14.7 milllion subscribers is the largest pay TV operator (fourth placed in the Asia-Pac rankings), Den Networks wih 11.2 million subs, Siti Cable with 10.5 million subs and Tata Sky with 10.2 million subs are at the No 8, 9, and 10 positions. Chinese operator Jiangsu Broadcasting with 20.9 million subs leads the Asia Pac table, while China Telecom with 19.9 million subs is at No 2.
The numbers can only go up for Indian pay TV ops, says an industry observer, as the government mandated digitisation spreads further into smaller and smaller towns forcing consolidation on the industry. Some MSOs are likely to expand even as DTH will attempt to garner new subscribers.
The researcher says that Videocon d2H leads the Indian pay TV operator pecking order if one looks at net subscriber additions with its number of 2.3 million. Dish TV is also doing well with 2.2 million net new subscriber adds. While Tata Sky follows with 1.98 million new additions.
India‘s BSNL with 9.9 million broadband subsribers and Bharati Airtel with 1.38 million are the only Indian firms featuring in the broadband table.
On the whole, SNL Kagan has crowned US cable TV service provider Comcast, as the world‘s largest pay-TV provider last year with nearly 22 million subscribers. However the next two are not far behind. China‘s Jiangsu Broadcasting has 20.9 million and DirecTV has 20.1 million.
China Telecom was the top fixed broadband provider, reaching 90.1 million high-speed Internet customers. India, China and the US accounted for 50 or nearly half of the 106 top pay-TV operators, with 27 companies based in China and 12 in India. The US is third with 11 operators, followed by France, Germany, South Korea, Brazil and Mexico, each with five.
In Asia, of the top 10 platforms by subscriber number, six were in China and the rest are in India led by Dish TV.
Comcast is still the number one broadband provider in the US, with about 19.4 million subscribers ahead of AT&T with 16.4 million and Time Warner Cable with 11.4 million subscribers.
For a list of the Global Top Multichannel Operators by Year-End 2012 Video Subscribers. Click Here
For a list of the Global Top Multichannel Operators by Year-End 2012 Video Net Adds. Click Here
For a list of the Global Top Broadband providers by Year-End 2012 Subscribers. Click Here
For a list of the Global Top Broadband providers by Year-End 2012 Net Adds. Click Here
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SNL Kagan‘s global media & entertainment heavyweights
US multi-channel video subscriber universe sees small growth in 2012: SNL Kagan
