5G Advertising Cost the 'Big Four' Operators 1 Billion Rubles
The 'Big Four' operators spent about 1 billion rubles on 5G advertising in a month. The budget leader is MTS: 410 million rubles on TV and 140 million rubles on digital and outdoor advertising.
Nearly 1 Billion Rubles in a Month
The 'Big Four' operators — MegaFon, T2 Mobile, VimpelCom and MTS — spent about 1 billion rubles on advertising their 5G networks in the first month after the launch. This is reported by Vedomosti, citing data from holding company NMi Group. In the first week after the commercial networks launched, operators directed about 230 million rubles to television alone.
The 5G launch took place on September 11 — for the first time in the history of Russian telecommunications. Fifth-generation services went live in 16 cities. T2 Mobile and MTS were the first to start preparing consumers: their advertising budgets turned out to be the largest in September.
Conclusion: The promotion of 5G became the most expensive telecom campaign of the season.
Who Spent How Much
MTS holds the lead in 5G TV advertising spending in September. Over the month, three of the four operators directed more than 880 million rubles to promotion. Notably less was invested in digital and outdoor advertising (OOH, Out Of Home — digital street media) than in television.
Budget distribution in September:
- TV advertising: MTS — 410 million rubles, T2 Mobile — 250 million rubles, MegaFon — 165 million rubles.
- Digital and OOH: MTS — 140 million rubles, T2 Mobile — 130 million rubles, MegaFon — 25 million rubles.
Conclusion: Over two thirds of the budget went to television — the channel with maximum reach.
What This Means for the Market
In terms of placement intensity, the 5G launch in Russia became one of the largest telecom campaigns of the year. This assessment was given by Damir Feizullov, Director of Digital and Social Media at PR Partner agency.
Operators are competing for subscribers at the moment a new technology appears. Whoever is the first to cement the association '5G = our brand' gains an advantage. This is a classic race for market share during a technological shift.
Conclusion: The expenses are justified by the battle for the subscriber base.
What's Next
The first month showed that operators are ready to spend record amounts on promoting 5G. What remains to be seen is whether these investments will pay off in subscriber inflow and revenue growth from new services.
Author: Sergey Melnik
Original: kommersant.ru
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