Russia’s pay-TV market added 180,000 subscribers in the first quarter, its lowest growth rate in five years.
At the same time, reports Kommersant, quoting figures produced by TelecomDaily, operators’ total revenues in Q1 amounted to R20.1 billion (€330.2 million), a 3.4% decline on the previous quarter.
Significantly, this was also the second year in arrow that Q1 revenues fell.
The top five pay-TV operators accounted for the overwhelming majority (90%+) of new subscribers in the first quarter. Tricolor TV gained 10,000, raising its total to 12.15 million, while Rostelecom saw its base grow by 110,000 to 9.41 million and Orion gained 25,500 to reach 2.978 million. ER Telecom, also one of the ‘top five’, gained over 500,000 new customers through the acquisition of Novotelecom.
The total number of pay-TV subscribers in Russia as of the end of Q1 stood at 41.38 million.
IPTV saw the strongest growth in Q1, gaining 100,000 subscribers, though the actual figure could be over 200,000. However, it still accounted for only 15% of the pay-TV market.
Although DTH gained only 40,000 new subscribers in Q1, the figure is expected to be higher during the upcoming summer season.
Given the slowdown in subscriber growth, operators are now increasingly turning their attention to ARPU and raising it through the provision of interactive services such as VOD.
