The number of pay-TV subscribers in Russia stood at 45.9 million as of the end of the third quarter.
This, according to data produced by TMT Consulting and published by ComNews, represented a 220,000, or 0.5%, increase on the previous quarter and was the first time an increase was seen this year.
While the number of cable subscribers continued to fall, the total number of DTH subscribers increased in Q3. The latter was largely due to MTS, which saw its total increase by 41,000 to 948,000 and is expected to reach 1 million by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, Orion stemmed its recent outflow, gaining 25,000 DTH customers in Q3, whereas the market leader Tricolor lost 24,000 customers.
The IPTV sector gained 200,000 subscribers in the third quarter, with Rostelcom accounting for accounting for over half.
All told, Rostelecom, VimpelCom and MTS accounted for 93% of IPTV customer growth in the third quarter.
Tricolor, with 12.206 million, had the most pay-TV subscribers. It was followed by Rostelecom (10.685 million), MTS (4.155 million), ER-Telecom (3.803 million) and Orion (3.031 million).
Pay-TV penetration in Q3 was close to 81% and total pay-TV revenues amounted to over R26.5 billion (€289 million).
ARPU was R193, up from R187 in Q2 and almost at the R194 recorded in the first quarter.
