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04
Jun

Summer Season of Mobile Sales Opens in May

May brought additional 1.27 mln of subscribers to Russian mobile networks. The opening of 'summer mobile sales' season in major cities and growth of regional networks resulted in above average net additions.

Starting the present issue we include into our ranking consolidated numbers of cellular subscribers of Siberia Telecom, Svyazinvest subsidiary that controls Eniseytelecom (Krasnoyarsk), Baykalwestcom (Irkutsk), STeK GSM (Kemerovo), Ulan-Ude Cellular Communications and several smaller networks. We believe that the company may consolidate its cellular assets into a single operator pretty soon.

Top 10 Cellular Operators

Company May 31, 2003 April 30, 2003
Total Moscow Total Moscow
MTS* 10,815,000 3,945,000 10,215,000 3,750,000
Vimpelcom 6,920,000 4,220,000 6,580,000 4,090,000
MegaFon** 4,004,199 409,000 3,820,199 403,170
SMARTS Group 758,400   703,900  
Uralsvyazinform 659,500   601,800  
Siberia Telecom 234,619   230,000  
N.Novgorod Cellular 233,100   212,700  
Tomsk Cellular Communications 145,799   135,278  
Ekaterinburg Cellular Communications 129,800   126,700  
Tatincom 126,000   124,868  

*including UMC of Ukraine (1.91 mln) and Belarus subscribers (140,000)
** including 6,500 in TT-Mobile (Tajikistan)

MegaFon enlisted its 4,000,000 subscriber in May while MTS demonstrated impressive growth in regional sales with more than 400,000 new subscribers joining the company in areas outside Moscow.

Vimpelcom announced results of its first month of operations in St.Petersburg. The company attracted more than 25,000 subscribers which is in line with its management projections. Vimpelcom's total subscriber base almost reached 7 mln in May. We expect that the company will enlist its 7,000,000th user in the first week of June.

Russian Cellular Market Breakdown, May 2003

The chart above includes only Russian subscribers, all CIS networks are excluded from the calculation.

Moscow Market

Traditionally, many Muscovites start commuting to their summer houses located in areas around Moscow in May, which results in growing share of pre-paid subscriptions of Moscow-based providers. Since cellular became an affordable service for the mass market, it remains a killer application for those commuting to dachas which usually do not have fixed-line phones installed.

This year the growth in subscriptions started early, already in May, with seasonal promotions and active advertising campaigns by all operators. MTS and Vimpelcom were more active and demonstrated better results than MegaFon that lacks a competetive coverage outside Moscow.

Moscow Net Additions in May 2003