OTT services in Russia experienced a dramatic slowdown in 2022, with revenues increasing by only 5% to R63.3 billion (€786 million).
According to a report by TelecomDaily, this was in sharp contrast to previous years, with revenues growing an average of 52% in 2019 and 2020. Market saturation effectively stopped during the pandemic, with demand for OTT services surging in 2020-2021.
Then last year, subscriber numbers fell due to some large platforms (Netflix and Megogo) leaving the market and customers having reduced purchasing power.
The report notes that subscription-based services continue to gain at the expense of ad-funded ones. The latter accounted for only 9% of revenues in 2022, compared to 15% in 2021 and 36% in 2018.
Although ivi increased its share of revenue from 19.7% in 2021 to 20.5% last year, it lost top spot to Kinopoisk, which claimed 24.1% in 2022. Rostelecom’s Wink was in third place (11.4%), followed by Okko (10.8%) and Start and Kion (both 6.8%).
TelecomDaily expects the OTT market to partially recover this year, with revenues growing by 10-12%.
