Russian communications market grows 11.2% in Q1
MOSCOW. June 18 (Interfax) - Russian communications providers boosted revenue 11.2% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2009 to 304.445 billion rubles, the Communications Ministry said.
Traditional providers - those set up when the sector was privatized in the 1990s - saw a 5.5% increase to 94.299 billion rubles.
Overall services to individuals rose 11% to 161.333 billion rubles, of which traditional operators provided 42.75 billion rubles, up 5.3%.
Wireless communications providers saw their revenue increase 9.7% to 129.379 billion rubles, however the traditional segment provided just 3.579 billion rubles of these services, down 1% year-on-year.
Individual subscribers generated 112.6 billion rubles in wireless communications revenue, up 11.3% year-on-year, including 3.033 billion rubles for traditional operators, down 1.6%.
The number of mobile phones in Russia grew 16.35 to 205.903 million.
The long-distance communications market (inter-city, intra-zonal and international) contracted by 4.2% year-on-year in Q1 to 29.118 billion rubles, including 19.598 billion rubles at traditional operators, down 6.3%.
Local urban telecom services grew 7% to 32.489 billion rubles, including 22.37 billion rubles or 2% more in the traditional segment. Local rural telecom services edged up 0.4% to 2.756 billion rubles, all provided by traditional operators.
The number of subscriber landline telephones decreased 0.7% to 43.323 million.
Traditional operators received 936 million rubles from services to special users (government agencies, security services).
The datacom market grew 33.9% to 32.32 billion rubles, with traditional operators boosting revenue here 34.8% to 12.199 billion rubles.
Internet services to individuals soared 44.5% to 10.935 billion rubles, but this was still less than a third of all Internet revenue. Traditional operators provided 6.23 billion rubles in Internet services to individuals, up 38.8% year-on-year.
Internet traffic in Russia jumped 3.7-fold to 470.87 billion megabytes.
Interconnection and transit revenue rose 16.2% to 47.78 billion rubles, of which traditional operators provided 9.197 billion rubles, or 5.7% less than a year previously.
Postal services grew 15% to 20.29 billion rubles.
Russia's communications market grew 17.9% in 2008 to 1.22 trillion rubles, of which traditional operators generated 373.33 billion rubles, up 7.4%. Services to individuals grew 15.7% to 655.2 billion rubles, including 164.9 billion rubles in the traditional segment, up 5.2%.