Russia's pay TV to grow to 45.3 million subscribers in 2018

Wednesday, September 24th, 2014
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J’son & Partners Consulting has released figures for pay TV in Russia to the end of the first half of 2014 with forecasts of the market’s development to 2018.

At the end of the first half of 2014, Russia had 37.1 million households receiving TV via cable, satellite or IPTV, up 6% compared with the end of 2013. J’son & Partners expects that total to reach 45.3 million households in 2018, with a household penetration of 83%, up from 68% today. The fastest growing segments are expected to be satellite and IPTV.

Pay TV, Cable TV, IPTV, Satellite TV subscribers
Source: J’son & Partners Consulting

The share of satellite TV increased to 39% at the end of June. The growth of satellite TV is mainly due to its low cost relative to other technologies, as well as independence from a fixed network and nationwide availability. Subscriber growth for satellite is driven by the operators Tricolor TV, NTV-Plus and Orion Express.

IPTV grew by 19% in the first half of 2014, to give a market share of 12%. Leading operators are Rostelecom, VimpelCom and MTS.

The growth rate of the cable TV segment was the slowest at 0.1%. Cable TV operators in Russia are in the process of modernising their networks and moving to DVB-C technology. Cable television had slightly less than half of the total pay-TV market (49%) at the end of the first half, down 3 percentage points compared with the end of 2013.

Pay TV subscriber base in Russia by technology (millions)

                              Growth               Growth
              2012   2013  2013/2012  1H2014  1H2014/2013
             -----  -----  ---------  ------  -----------
Total        31.86  35.09      10.2%    37.1         5.7%
 Satellite   11.05  13.09      18.5%   14.37         9.7%
 Cable       18.26  18.27      0.02%   18.28        0.07%
 IPTV         2.54   3.74      47.2%    4.46        19.2%

Source: J’son & Partners Consulting

The overall leaders in the Russian pay-TV market in the 1st half of 2014 were Tricolor TV (market share 29%), Rostelecom (21%), MTS (7%), ER-Telecom (7%) and Orion Express (6%). Tricolor TV increased its subscriber base by 5% in H1 2014.