The video streaming service ivu.ru is now the leading player in Russia’s VOD market in revenue terms, with a market share of 28%, according to a report published by iKS Consulting.
The report says that Russia as a whole is now the largest online video market in Europe, with around 60 million unique viewers.
The online advertising market grew by 27% y-o-y to approximately $2.2 billion, while the online video advertising market grew by 67% y-o-y to approximately $88.73 million.
The Russian VOD market more than doubled y-o-y to $50.5 million (a 105% y-o-y growth in revenues), and the top nine players control 97% of the Russian VOD market.
The ad-supported model accounts for 78% ($39.5 million) of the market (74% growth y-o-y); while the payment model has grown more than four-fold and accounts for 22% ($11 million).
Between 100-200 million video viewings are generated via each key player’s service monthly and a third (24 million users) of the Russian population use the internet to watch VOD services monthly.
Significantly, the Russian VOD market is expected to grow by 75% this year to $88.7million and to reach $290.5 million by 2018.
Looking specifically at ivi.ru, the report says that it doubled its revenues to $14.1 million (95% growth), while its unique user-base doubled to 30 million per month (114% increase y-o-y).
It also doubled video viewings to 200 million per month (135% increase y-o-y).
Ivi.ru users watch 33 million hours of video content per month and the service is the number one player by the total number of downloads of its mobile app on devices (smartphones and tablets) with 9 million downloads.
It is also the number one player by audience who watch video on smart TVs with 2 million users monthly.
Commenting on the reports findings, Oleg Tumanov, ivi.ru’s founder and CEO, said: “We are delighted to be acknowledged as the leader of the Russian licensed VOD market in a comprehensive independent industry study carried out for the first time. 2013 was the year of two-fold growth for ivi.ru. We doubled the number of unique visitors on all devices to 30 mln users while the number of video viewings has increased by 135% to 200 mln per month. These strong results are a testament to the success in the uptake of our streaming service as we strive to bring best-in-class user experience to our customers.
“We see strong potential in the Russian licensed VOD market boosted by the growing number of smart devices and new anti-piracy legislation which was introduced in 2013. Ivi.ru welcomes this law as we see it as a positive step towards curbing online video piracy. Russia boasts the largest and fastest growing online audience in Europe since 2012. We will continue to offer high quality licensed video content to our users, which can be easily accessed anywhere in Russia from any connected device”.
