Prices for Communication have Risen by 6 Times – the FBK Study of “How Much is Russia”

Another stage of the evaluation of Russian economy carried out by FBK analysts under the project of “How much is Russia: 10 years later” is devoted to communication. Even 10 years ago that was one of the most dynamically developing sectors of the economy. That trend has continued and for the last decade the sector value has increased by 6.3 times and amounted to 349.8 bn roubles.

Judging by the development of information technologies the communication will retain the status of one of the most promising types of economic activity. During the decade the communication sector significantly expanded both in terms of coverage of consumers and the range of services provided. For some types of communication there has been a radical change in the quality and cost of services: the telephony and television are shifting to the digital format, the cost of providing the services of Internet and mobile (“mobile” - the terminology of Rosstat) communication has significantly reduced.

For the last decade the number of communication organizations has increased by over 9 times, the quantities of communication facilities of organization and population multiplied.
And the number of employees engaged in the sector has practically remained the same over the decade and is now about 900 thousand people.

The analysis of dynamics of the communication natural indicators shows the slowdown of activity in the mail communication; the telephone communication showed a fairly modest quantitative growth though the qualitative is quite impressive – from 2002 through 2012 the number of telephone sets (including public telephones) increased by 19% with the growth of the local digital communication system from 2001 through 2013from 35.3% to 88.5% in the urban and from 7.9% to 67.3% in the rural areas. The telecasting increased insignificantly. The number of postmen in the country decreased by 8%.

The structure of communication services in 2002-2012 continued changing in the same direction as in the 90-ies. In particular, the proportion of telephone communication in the total volume of services continued to fall and the role of mobile communication increased as well as of documentary communication and the services of traffic connection and transmission.

“We also associate the changes in the structure of the sector basic assets with the development of technologies. With the preservation of basic assets of the post, telegraph, telephony and as a result of proliferation of the internet, mobile communication and satellite television the assets in the mobile, satellite and electric communication have significantly increased”, said Igor Nikolayev, the head of the research project, FBK Institute of Strategic Development director.

A full text of “Communication” sector can be found at the research site: skolko.ru