DTH coverage spans 49.8% of rural India: Chrome Data Analytics survey

Chrome Data Analytics & Media has launched its proprietary Rural Establishment Survey (RES), a study covering consumer behaviour and habits in over 200,000 Indian villages.

The survey holds direct actionables for brands and agencies to help target growth regions. Broadcasters, for example, can know the exact subscriber base of cable networks in the villages covered. Along with this, it also gives the number of active subscribers of each cable network. The company believes RES will add immense value to business strategies for broadcasters, agencies and advertisers.

The survey, which was done over a period of 15 months, involved the entire Chrome DM infrastructure of over 650 field executive, 450 telecalling staff and the 150 strong analytics team, together speaking over 22 languages to map the length and breadth of the country. Respondents were made to fill out a detailed questionnaire, which included consumer habits, family income and lifestyle patterns among other things.

Speaking on the product, Pankaj Krishna, CEO, Chrome DM, said, “It has been a humbling experience to be a part of a study of such massive scale, and I’m proud of the team for the amount of efforts they have put in over the past 15 months. Even we weren’t prepared for some of the findings – for broadcasters for example, there are pockets of rural areas that have seen Freedish penetration spiral up to almost a hundred percent.”

Chrome RES, he added, would be key for any business planning to capitalise on data driven strategies to exploit the 74 per cent rural population.

Key findings:

TV transmission split: DTH coverage spans 49.8 per cent of rural India, while analog’s share is 32.6 per cent and digital’s share is 17.6 per cent

Every second person uses a mobile phone

Less than 15 per cent households use LPG/ PNG as fuel for cooking

Under 40 per cent have connection to drainage for waste water

Over 80 per cent do not have access to tap water from treated source

Over half of the households do not have electricity connections

Two-third of the people in rural areas have homes with mud flooring