A Closer Look at 2005 Cellular Subscriber Data

Excerpt

2005 was another year of intensive subscriber growth for Russian cellular operators. As the regional expansion within the country is almost over, largest players turned abroad, particularly to neighboring CIS countries, capitalizing on growing popularity of mobile services in those markets. Although in some cases this move is still seen as staking the territory, most important CIS markets already play a visible role in intensifying competition between top Russian operators.

Thus, by the end of 2005 MTS had presence in Ukraine (UMC), Belarus, Uzbekistan (Uzdunrobita), Turkmenistan (Barash Communications) and Kyrgyzstan (Bitel) while Vimpelcom controlled KaR-Tel, 2nd-largest GSM operator in Kazakhstan, and had subsidiaries in Ukraine (WellCOM) and Tajikistan (Tacom). MegaFon, third-largest Russian operator, thus far has not been as active as its peers with presence outside Russia only in Tajikistan through TT-Mobile. However, MegaFon is expected to shortly launch service in Kyrgyzstan...

Click here to download the file.