India’s giant DTH and cable market is seeing a “sustained” increase in ARPU levels, says accountancy firm KPMG in its latest FICCI-KPMG study on the Indian media market.

Last year DTH operators saw ARPU growth of between 12-15 per cent, and this followed on from 2013’s growth rates of about 8-9 per cent. The overall averages were helped by growth in HD TV services, a growing number of Premium channels and other value-added elements in particular set-top boxes with added storage, and more recently the introduction of 4K transmissions.

The cable sector’s main gains are coming from the gradual conversion from analogue to digital under the nation’s Digital Addressable System obligations.

However, KPMG issued a very firm warning, saying that digital piracy and theft is a problem, and that India’s government needs to do far more to toughen up its compliance requirements and introduce stricter vigilance and penalties for copyright theft.

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