The Russian market of pay-TV is one of the largest in the world: in the 2012 it had 31.9 million households connected via cable, satellite and IPTV.
According to J’son & Partners Consulting, subscriber growth will continue, and by 2017 the number of subscribers will reach 40.2 million DH, or 74% of all TV homes.
At the end of 2012 subscriber basic pay TV in Russia amounted to 31.9 million, which is 11% higher than in 2011 pay TV, when penetration was 58%.
Satellite TV and IPTV showed the biggest growth in the years 2011-2012. IPTV subscriber base increased 1.6 times and satellite DTH grew 19%.
The growth of satellite TV subscribers is mainly due to Tricolor TV. For 2012 Tricolor TV has added 2.4 million new subscribers, increasing its base to 11.9 million households.
J’son & Partners Consulting said the increase of pay-TV subscribers for Tricolor TV in 2012 was 1.4 million households (8.9 million paying subscribers in 2012 against 7.5 million paying subscribers in 2011).
In general, the Russian segment of pay satellite TV for the year increased by 1.9 million households, so the contribution of Tricolor TV to the growth of the segment was 74%.
The rapid growth of IPTV was due to increased broadband penetration, which has reached 48%. The market leader for IPTV are Rostelecom, VimpelCom and MTS.
The growth rate of cable TV is slowing down with operators upgrading their networks to DVB-C and adding new services such as video on demand, catch-up-TV and others.
The largest players in the pay-TV market Russia in 2012 are Tricolor TV (market share 28%), Rostelecom (21%), MTS (9%), ER-Telecom (7%) and Academ (4%).
In 2012, cable television accounted for more than half of all pay-TV subscribers (58%), a decline of 4% compared to 2011. Share of satellite TV was 34% and IPTV increased to 8%.
