MOSCOW: The Russian communications market demonstrated slight growth in 2016, rising by 0.6 percent year-on-year, reports Ict-online.ru, citing a study from TMT-Consulting. It said the revenue of the communications sector totalled RUB 1.597 trillion. The market increase was 0.8 percent year-on-year in 2015. The increase slowed down because of worse dynamics in the internet and pay-TV segments. Mobile connections generated 55 percent of communications revenues in 2016, down by 0.3 percent year-on-year, while internet services accounted for 11 percent of revenue, up by 3.8 percent. Fixed telephony revenue comprised 9 percent, down by 7.6 percent, and the share of each of the pay-TV services and B2O services market was 5 percent. Postal services formed 9 percent of revenues and other income amounted to 6 percent.
Incomes from pay-TV services grew by 11.0 percent and revenues from B2O services decreased by 0.6 percent. ARPU of mobile operator MTS dropped from RUB 341 to RUB 323 year-on-year, the figure for Megafon declined from RUB 318 to RUB 296, and Beeline demonstrated a decline from RUB 330 to RUB 321. ARPU at Tele2 Russia dropped from RUB 227 to RUB 226. Operators compensated for the decline by a growth in sales of end-user devices. Total revenue grew by 1.6 percent in the mobile connection market.
Broadband penetration totalled 56 percent at the end of 2016. The retail broadband subscribers base grew by 4 percent and revenue also increased by around 4 percent. The pay-TV subscribers base grew by over 3 percent to 41 million and penetration of the service reached the threshold of 72 percent. Pay-TV revenues totalled RUB 74 billion. The fixed telephony subscriber base dropped by almost 1.7 million at the end of 2016. TMT Consulting expects that the penetration of the fixed telephony service will decline by 9 percentage points by 2021, from the currently level of 42 percent. The average annual increase of the Russian telecommunications market is expected to be 0.4 percent for coming five years.
