IR Blog

Today, we have released our subscriber numbers for the month of January 2010. Below is a table outlining the dynamics of our customer base.

Subscribers (mln)	Jan 31, 2010	Dec 31, 2009	Growth Subs	Growth %	Jan 31, 2009	Growth Subs	Growth %
Total consolidated subscribers, eop	97.46	97.81	(0.35)	(0.4%)	91.40	6.06	6.6%
Russia	68.88	69.34	(0.46)	(0.7%)	64.49	4.39	6.8%
Ukraine	17.52	17.56	(0.04)	(0.2%)	18.15	(0.63)	(3.4%)
Uzbekistan	7.19	7.07	0.12	1.7%	5.73	1.46	25.4%
Turkmenistan	1.79	1.76	0.03	1.6%	1.00	0.79	78.5%
Armenia	2.08	2.07	0.01	0.2%	2.03	0.05	2.4%
MTS Belarus1	4.55	4.56	(0.01)	(0.2%)	4.37	0.18	4.2%

Subscriber data for Russian mobile operators is compiled by Advanced Communications and Media, a management consulting and research agency specializing in telecommunications and media. You can view their January subscriber report here.

¹ MTS owns a 49% stake in Mobile TeleSystems LLC, a mobile operator in Belarus, which is not consolidated.

Earlier this week MTS became the only Russian telecommunications company to obtain the ISO 9001:2008 certificate of conformity for its Quality Management System that covers all of our locations in Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The certification audit was conducted by SGS, the global leader in inspection, verification, testing and certification services.

 From left to right: Alexander Gamov – Director of the Quality Assurance Department at MTS, Peter Marriott – Vice-President of SGS SA, Konstantin Timoshechkin – Manager in charge of business development at SGS S.A. (Eastern Europe).

We have recently signed a partnership agreement with FC Zenit St. Petersburg, one of the most successful football clubs in Russia. As the official partner of the club, MTS will provide Zenit with mobile communications services and will participate in various projects aimed at promoting the club.

Zenit has recently become one of the most recognized Russian sports brands, winning both the 2008 UEFA Cup and the 2008 UEFA Super Cup. We decided to become partners with Zenit due to its unique appeal in St. Petersburg and growing presence in the international football community.

We are delighted to inform you that MTS was recognized at a ceremony hosted at the Radisson SAS Slavyanskaya in Moscow, Russia, and was awarded three “Crystal Headsets.” Our macro-region North-West call center (located in Saint Petersburg) and its head Ms. Elena Kopshar won in the “Best Internal Relations in a Call Center” and “Best Team Leader” nominations respectively. Our colleagues at the MTS Ukraine call center won in the “Best Call Center Infrastructure” category.

In Ukraine, MTS has been offering a mobile Internet access solution MTS Connect 3G on high-speed CDMA 2000 1хEV-DO Rev.A network since late 2007. We would like to share some interesting stats about the uptake of the service, which has proven to be very popular in a country with very limited fixed broadband penetration.

As of today, our network is available in over 150 cities and communities across the country, effectively covering all the major population centers. At this point, we are no longer focused on expanding the network but rather on increasing its capacity to account for data traffic growth.