Russia’s Rostelecom ended 2018 with 10.2 million pay-TV subscribers, up from 9.8 million a year earlier.
Of these, 5.3 million (4.8 million in Q4 2017) opted for IPTV and the remaining 4.9 million (4.9 million) cable TV services.
The majority of its pay-TV customers (6.7 million) were outside Moscow and pay-TV ARPU (B2C), including IPTV, was R314 (€4.22), up from R300 a year earlier. Meanwhile, blended ARPU for the telco’s services stood at R527 (R487).
Rostelecom’s revenues in 2018 amounted to R320,239 million, or 5% more than in the previous year. OIBDA was R100,900 million (+4%) and net income R15,012 million (+7%).
Commenting on the results, Mikhail Oseevskiy, President of Rostelecom, said: “2018 was a milestone year for Rostelecom. We started to implement our 2022 strategy, with a strong focus on improving our products and services ecosystem, enhancing efficiency, the further modernisation of our technological platform, and of course, the development of our team”.
In his reference to the services, he added: “Our brand-new service and multimedia platform Wink was recently added to our private client ecosystem, marking an evolutionary stage in the development of IPTV, which is today popular among millions of families across the entire country. Wink is a truly comprehensive platform, comprising of a mobile app, a website and a Smart TV app, more than 200 TV channels and more than 12 thousand films and episodes already available to Rostelecom’s clients, as well as a set of value added services including NPVR and Parental control options”.
