Romania’s pay-TV market has undergone several interesting changes in the last couple of years.
The latest statistical report published by the regulator ANCOM shows that the number of active operators fell from 147 in Q2 2019 to 101 in the same quarter this year. The biggest reduction was seen in the cable sector, with the number of service providers down from 144 to 97. DTH providers, on the other hand, remained unchanged at five throughout the entire period, while those employing IPTV increased from three to four.
Meanwhile, the total number of pay-TV subscribers, in what was already a saturated market, rose from 7.63 million to 7.79 million over the two years. Perhaps the only surprise was a 0.1% reduction in the first half of 2021, though this could prove to be an anomaly.
Cable is still king in Romania and the number of connections continues to grow. Over the period in question it increased from 5.36 million to 6.03 million. At the same, the number of DTH subscribers fell from 2.13 million to 1.63 million and IPTV – surprisingly, given its growing popularity elsewhere – from 130,000 to 120,000.
Significantly, RCS&RDS (Digi) strengthened its grip on the pay-TV market as a whole during the period in question. Its share of subscribers increased from just over half (51.2%) in Q2 2019 to almost two-thirds (63.3%) in Q2 this year. Second placed Telekom saw its fall from 18% to 13.7% and Vodafone in third spot from 11.9% to 11.3%.
Digi’s dominance was even more apparent in the cable sector, where its share increased from 63.2% to 74.4%, while those of both Vodafone (16.9% to 14.6%) and Telekom (8.3% to 6.6%) fell. It also grew its share in DTH, from 24.3% to 27%, while the market leader Telekom saw its fall from 37.4% to 33.4%.
Other key stats in the study included that alongside the increase in cable subscribers the percentage using digital services fell from 49% to 48% over the two-year period and that cable accounted for 62% of digital subscriptions, with DTH and IPTV claiming 35% and 3% respectively.
Furthermore, in questioning subscribers, the study found that satisfaction with their cable, DTH or IPTV service fell from 61% in 2019 to 49% this year.
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