Orion Express is now the fifth leading provider of pay-TV services in Russia, as well as the country’s second largest DTH platform operator.
Vedomosti reports that as of this month it had a total of 1.2 million customers receiving its premium channel packages, up from 1.05 million at the end of 2012.
As a result, it had overtaken the cable operator Akado, which had 1.15 million subscribers at the end of Q1 and 1.1 million three months earlier.
Orion Express operates a total of three services – Continent TV, Telekarta and Orient Express – with roughly two-thirds of its subscribers opting for Telekarta.
Tricolor TV, the leading DTH platform in Russia, meanwhile had 9.1 million paying customers at the end of the first quarter.