Bharti Airtel’s Direct-to-Home (DTH) business, Airtel Digital TV, has gained a new high rank among the top DTH players of India. It is mostly Tata Sky and Dish TV, which are in the top two rankings, but with the rising market share, Airtel Digital TV has taken the second spot in India. This comes directly from the CEO of Bharti Airtel, Gopal Vittal, who in a note shared that Airtel Digital TV’s market share grew from 22% in December 2018 to 27% in December 2020. Vittal said that the company’s DTH business outpaced all the other companies in terms of performance in the last 8 quarters (2 years).
Full Ownership of Airtel Digital TV Helps in the Long Run
Vittal said that the complete ownership of the DTH business helps Bharti Airtel be more flexible in its approach to offering services for driving the business ahead. The company has created one mass retail channel leveraging its mobility distribution system with the DTH business to drive multiple businesses of the company forward. Airtel Digital TV is part of the company’s Homes Business. The Homes Business of the company also includes broadband services. Vittal said that Airtel’s broadband business has now more than 3 million customers throughout India. The company expanded its broadband footprint to multiple new towns and cities during the fourth quarter of FY21. Vittal shared that Airtel’s Homes Business is now available in more than 200 cities throughout India. The company added 274K new customers under its Home Business. Airtel will be growing its Homes Business by focusing on high-value homes. The company has identified that there are around 50 million high-value homes in the country. Vittal said that Airtel already has relations with over 30 million such homes through at least one of its services, including DTH, broadband, or postpaid. The company is targeting to bring all of its services under these homes and identifies it as an opportunity to grow its market share further. Airtel has combined 2,000 of its retail stores and its broadband business to create one integrated channel for providing services to the users. This integrated channel will deliver and install all the services in the customers’ homes.
