MOSCOW, December 12 (RIA Novosti, Peter Lavelle) - Russia's mobile market continued to follow an upward trend in November, with penetration growing by 2.8% (2.9% in October) to reach 82.5%. The usual surge in December on the back of holiday season promotions is expected, though not at the same pace about 5% last year at this time.
VimpelCom, with its flagship brand Beeline, caught up with it most important competitor MTS after losing first place in terms of market share of net additions in Russia for two straight months. VimpelCom was the leader on that score in all markets (Moscow, St. Petersburg and the regions). Tele2, Uralsvyazinform and Siberia Telecom signed the most subscriptions among smaller operators, bringing on 160,000, 131,755 and 121,404 subscriptions, respectively.
Russia total Moscow St. Petersburg Regions
Market share, %
MTS 34.8 44.8 32.7 32.4
VimpelCom 34.4 40.5 21.6 33.7
MegaFon 18.5 14.0 37.8 18.0
Source: AC&M consulting
