Tata Sky, the Indian direct-to-home (DTH) operator, has reached 1 million subscribers within its first year of having launched services, the company announced Aug. 8.

As India represents one of the world’s largest DTH markets, Tata CEO Vikram Kaushik said he believes his company will reach 8 million subscribers within the next five years. He also expects Tata to be India’s dominant pay-TV platform.

Citing a Media Partners Asia report, Tata believes the pay-TV market in India is set to explode with upwards of 165 million pay-TV households by 2015, with pay-TV penetration reaching 90 percent of TV households.

Despite such growth opportunities, Kaushik believes that regulatory changes will be required for the Indian pay-TV market to reach its potential. He is calling for the Indian pay-TV market to be “minimally regulated until the industry achieves critical mass,” and for the government to “reduce punitive levels of taxation on DTH” while regulators relax rules about carrying content to allow Tata’s platform to carry and differentiate itself with more exclusive programming.