The Russian mobile operator MTS plans to launch a new OTT service.
According to Kommersant, quoting MTS Media’s CEO Igor Mishin, it will be known as Kion and make its debut on April 20.
It adds that Kion will be managed by MTS Media, while the company’s current video service MTS TV will continue to provide cable, DTH and IPTV services.
Kion will initially only be available by subscription. However, it will also adopt an ad funded model by the end of the year.
Although MTS TV currently has a 1% market share, MTS expects Kion to be one of the top three OTT services in Russia by 2023, competing with ivi and Okko.
MTS will invest in productions for Kion, which is expected to have up to 11,000-12,000 items of content by the end of the year.
While the start-up cost of Kion have not been revealed, technology for the service is being supplied by Huawei.
