Rutube's monthly audience grew by 72% compared to February last year.

The monthly audience of Rutube video hosting in February was 77 million users. Compared to the same period last year, the indicator increased by 72%. On Thursday, March 20, Sergey Kosinsky, Deputy General Director and head of the digital unit of Gazprom-Media Holding, provided such figures.

"Also, the average daily reach in February was 17.6 million, and the annual growth was 239%. The number of views exceeded 4.2 billion views, which is five times higher than the data of the same period. And the total viewing time has increased by more than six times," he noted.

According to Kosinsky, the diversity of the platform's content has tripled. The main increase is due to the original content of the authors, thanks to which the number of subscribers has increased 2.5 times.

"All this speaks to the steadily growing interest of Russian users in Rutube. Moreover, in the near future there will be more foreign bloggers on the platform, in particular authors from China," concluded the media manager.

Earlier on the same day, it became known that the Nuum video hosting service, launched by MTS at the end of 2023, would be closed to a mass audience on June 1. MTS explained the decision to close the platform, which was created in order to replace YouTube and TikTok, with a "new company transformation strategy."

"In a high-stakes environment, MTS focuses on business efficiency and quick-payback projects. The development of b2c video hosting has been recognized as insufficiently effective," an MTS representative said in a comment to RBC.

Nuum's technological infrastructure will be transferred to the advertising division of MTS AdTech. In the future, it will be used to create an advertising network of video banners for e-commerce.