The Russian mobile operator MTS is considering selling a stake of its online paid video site Omlet.ru, the operator’s VP of Marketing Vasily Latsanich announced earlier this week at a press conference. “A content business should be separated from a mobile operator’s business, and we are not the only ones on the market to believe so,” the Russian online business publication CNews.ru quoted him as saying.
“We are considering selling a stake in this asset in order to make it more market oriented. A content business cannot eternally parasitize a mobile operator,” he added, without mentioning the size of the stake being considered for sale.
The online video subsidiary, however, could still remain within AFK Sistema, a diversified conglomerate and MTS’s parent company, with Sistema Mass Media potentially buying the stake in Omlet.ru. “We don’t want to lose control over this company,” Latsanich said a few months ago, according to CNews.ru. Latsanich, however, did not discuss these aspects during the recent press conference.
Noticeably, Omlet.ru now offers only movies and TV serials, whereas music and game content was also included in its original concept.
Over the last three years, Omlet.ru has added video content from Paramount Pictures and Disney, as well as from Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers, among others, to its catalog of offerings.
In 2011, the company shook hands with Samsung, Philips and Panasonic, which are to include the Omlet service in their new television models, CNews.ru reported.
Competition is getting harder, however. Now.ru, a paid video content site, launched last year with the support of Gazprom Media. The advertising-funded sites Ivi.ru, Tvigle.ru, and Zoomby.ru offer legal video content for free, not to mention the virtually unlimited amount of video content from all countries which is shared, sometimes illegally, by the users of Vkontakte.ru, Russia’s leading social network.
The Russian market is also being eyed by global video sites Hulu.com and Netflix.com.
