Although mobile TV services arrived later in Russia than other parts of Europe, there are now almost 3 million people in the country receiving services.
Furthermore, analysts believe this number could double to nearly 6 million by 2016.
Quoting J’son & Partners Consulting, AKTR and TelecomDaily report that the mobile TV market can now be considered as a separate market to TV in general.
It was worth R6 billion (€126.5 million) in 2012 and could grow to R16 billion by the end of this year.
It is also interesting to note that the rate the value is growing (63%) exceeds subscriber growth. Furthermore, demand is being fuelled by interest in sporting events, the rights to which are acquired by the three major mobile providers, as well as premium services, as seen in Western Europe.
MegaFon currently has around 40,000 active mobile TV users, while VimpelCom has about 300,000 paid customers, with tens of thousands watching only free channels without registering.
VimpelCom also introduced a mobile version of Beeline TV in April 2013 that is currently used by over 150,000 subscribers throughout Russia.
MTS has not released mobile TV subscriber numbers but says that streaming video is currently one of the most popular services it offers.
