Tricolor TV, Russia’s leading pay TV operator with 8.5 million paid subscribers, claims half a million HDTV subscribers, with optimistic plans to reach 3.9 million subscribers by next year and 7 million by 2015, the Russian tech news portal Digit.ru reported last week.
Aiming to become the leading European HD provider, in March of 2012 Tricolor launched an HD package consisting of 23 channels with a price point that surprised the broadcasting community. The $2.50 monthly subscription fee may not even cover the cost of rights for such a high number of HD channels, as well as not taking into account the costs associated with the satellite capacity.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported from unnamed sources that Tricolor is expected to yield a 25%+1 share stake to VTB, a major, state-controlled Russian bank. If confirmed, the transaction would value the operator at several hundreds of million dollars.
According to Telecomdaily, Tricolor’s 2011 revenue amounted to 3.33 billion rubles, or more than $110 million, and increased to 4.44 billion rubles, or almost $150 million, in 2012.
