The take-up of pay-TV services is growing rapidly in St Petersburg, Russia’s second city.
AKTR and Telecom Daily report that as of the end of the first quarter it had a total of 320,000 subscribers, of which only around 40,000 (8%) opted for IPTV.
The remainder was split almost equally between cable and DTH.
Tricolor TV, Russia’s leading satellite platform, has a strong presence in St Petersburg, claiming around 87,000 customers and a total of 632,000 in the North west of the country as a whole.
Comstar-Regions is also well represented, with 105,000 cable subscribers in the North west region as a whole.
Significantly, the company is understood to account for up to 60% of the pay-TV market in some parts of the region.