The number of pay-TV subscribers in Russia increased by only 80,000, or 0.2%, in the first quarter.
Quoting data produced by TMT Consulting, ComNews reports that this was the smallest increase in recent years.
It adds that MTS was again the leader in terms of absolute growth, driven by the introduction of new convergent services, offering discounts of up to 40%.
Rostelecom also grew above the market average, seeing an increase of almost 2% in its IPTV subscriber total.
Meanwhile, ER-Telecom’s subscriber total grew significantly following the acquisition of NTS, an operator based in Tomsk.
Orion lost over 70,000 subscribers in Q1, while Tricolor’s total was almost unchanged.
The number of IPTV subscribers grew by 180,000 in Q1, with three companies – Rostelecom, MTS and VimpelCom – accounting for 90% of the total.
There was no change in terms of the market structure for pay-TV compared to that in 2019.