Almost 30% of cable TV subscribers prefer digital transmission

The weighted average of those who are subscribed to digital cable television, out of all cable network subscribers, has reached 28.4%. More and more new subscribers opt for digital services, says the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology of Moldova (ANRCETI), quoted by Info-Prim Neo. Most of the subscribers who receive their TV signal in digital format are using either cable network services or IPTV. Of all the subscribers to cable network services 84.8 thousand benefit from digital TV, while 213.5 thousand receive their television in analog format. As a result of the increase in the subscriber base, in the first quarter of 2012, the income from selling audiovisual program transmissions went up to 76.5 mil lei, and the average per subscriber income (ARPU) of the multichannel TV operator summed up to 51.12 lei. During the reference period, cable network operators made sales summing to 39.8 mil lei. The highest incomes were registered by “Sun Communications” Ltd and “Moldtelecom” JSC, having added to their assets sales of 13.5 mil lei and 9.2 mil lei, respectively. “Sun Communications” Ltd registered an average monthly per subscriber (ARPU) income of 41.11 lei, and “Moldtelecom” JSC of 84.76 lei. 125 operators activated, during the first quarter of 2012, on the market for the retransmission of audiovisual channels. The highest shares of the cable network market were held, depending on their business average, by “Sun Communications” Ltd at 33.38%, “Moldtelecom” JSC at 23.05%, “AMT” Ltd at 4.37% and “Alfa” QC at 2.34%. The rest of the providers altogether share 36.41% of the market.