Less than 50,000 Romanians pay for HD TV services, but operators are hopeful

Out of the about six million clients of paid TV services, approximately 500,000 own a TV set capable of displaying high-definition broadcasts.

High-definition TV services, which allow users to get an image quality five times higher compared with a regular TV, have started to gain clients, but the market is still in its early stages, say the representatives of RCS&RDS, Romtelecom and UPC, the leading providers of TV services in Romania. Estimates point to fewer than 50,000 Romanians who pay a subscription enabling them to watch HD TV broadcast.

UPC, the first operator to have launched HD television in Romania, had 7,000 clients for its HD services in February, but sales have gone up since then, partly because of the FIFA World Cup HD broadcasts.

"Sales of HD TV services are on the rise," say the officials of Romtelecom, number three on the TV market, which, like UPC, is broadcasting all the games of the World Cup. It has more than 10,000 clients watching HD TV, most of them users of the IPTV (TV over the Internet) services.

RCS&RDS, leader of the TV services market in Romania launched HD TV for the clients of its cable services at the beginning of this month.