Over half (55%) of all Russian homes now receive some form of pay-TV service, with the total number opting for digital offers amounting to 14.5 million.
The findings, which are preliminary and contained in a report produced by iKS Consulting and published by AKTR and MSKIT, also show cable to be the most popular way of watching pay-TV (16.8 million households, or 5% more than a year ago), though DTH gained 1.9 million subscribers to end 2012 in 10.7 million homes.
IPTV, despite only claiming 2.7 million subscribers, saw its take-up grow by an even more impressive 73% in 2012.
Strong growth in the DTH and IPTV sectors resulted in cable’s overall pay-TV market share falling by four percentage points to 56%.
The DTH platform Tricolor TV will end this year as the leading provider of pay-TV services in Russia, with 8.79 million subscribers (+19% year-on-year) holding access cards.
It is followed by Rostelecom (6.6 million, +11%), MTS (2.96 million, -1%), ER Telecom (2.34 million, +34%) and Akado (1.1 million, +1%).
Rostelecom claimed the biggest income, equivalent to 19% of the total, in the pay-TV sector in 2012.
The total number of pay-TV subscribers in Russia is now projected to reach 35.7 million, or 64% of all homes, by 2016.