EEMEA Seeing Gains in OTT TV & Video Market

LONDON: Revenues from OTT TV and video in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) are expected to reach $2.6 billion in 2020, marking quite a large leap from the $52 million recorded in 2010, according to a new report from Digital TV Research.

The report finds that of the $2.2 billion in revenues to be added between 2014 and 2020 in the region, Russia will remain the largest revenue earner by some distance, delivering $795 million. Turkey is set to bring in a further $219 million.

In terms of OTT revenue sources, SVOD is poised to become the region's largest contributor in 2017. SVOD revenues will total $1.6 billion by 2020, accounting for 60 percent of the OTT total. This is up from the $3 million recorded in 2010, which marked just 6 percent of the OTT total. The firm is forecasting 24.22 million SVOD homes across EEMEA by 2020, up from 69,000 in 2010 and the expected 3.13 million by the end of this year. Russia is expected to overtake Poland as the largest SVOD country in 2015. Of the 22.7 million SVOD home additions between 2014 and 2020, Russia will account for 8.97 million, with Turkey following at 2.37 million and Poland 2.07 million.

Simon Murray, principal analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “OTT in Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa will still be an immature sector by 2020, although this is an improvement on the very immature status by end-2014 and its nearly non-existent status in 2010.”