Russian VoD market doubles with ivi.ru as leader

Oleg Tumanov

The Russian online video-on-demand market more than doubled last year to generate revenues of US$50.5 million (€36.6 million), with ivi.ru emerging as the leading player by revenue with a market share of 28%, according to a report by research group iKS-Consulting.

The report found that the overall Russian online video market generated total advertising revenues of US$88.73 million last year, up 67%, while VoD service revenues grew by 105% to US$50.5 million.

According to iKS-Consulting, the top nine players control 97% of the Russian VoD market, with advertising generating US419.5 million in revenues, up 74% year-on-year, with subscriptions and pay revenues generating US$11 million, growing fourfold from a low base.

Twenty-four million users use the internet to watch VoD service each month.

iKS-Consulting expects the VoD market to grow by 75% to US$88.7 million this year and to reach US$290.5 million by 2018.

Market leader ivi.ru saw its revenues grow by 95% to US$14.1 million last year and its unique user base increase by 114% to 30 million a month.

“We are delighted to be acknowledged as the leader of the Russian licensed VoD market in a comprehensive independent industry study carried out for the first time. 2013 was the year of two-fold growth for ivi.ru. We doubled the number of unique visitors on all devices to 30 million users while the number of video viewings has increased by 135% to 200 million per month. These strong results are a testament to the success in the uptake of our streaming service as we strive to bring best-in-class user experience to our customers,” said ivi.ru founder and CEO Oleg Tumanov.

“We see strong potential in the Russian licensed VoD market boosted by the growing number of smart devices and new anti-piracy legislation which was introduced in 2013. ivi.ru welcomes this law as we see it as a positive step towards curbing online video piracy. Russia boasts the largest and fastest growing online audience in Europe since 2012. We will continue to offer high quality licensed video content to our users, which can be easily accessed anywhere in Russia from any connected device.”