Russian Mobile Penetration Tops 18%
More than 27 million of the nation's citizens are wireless subscribers, reflecting record growth.
As of July 2003, Russian mobile penetration reached 18.6 percent of the population, according to findings from J’son & Partners, representing a 6.7 percent gain for the month alone. The total number of cellular subscribers reached 27.01 million, with 56 percent attributed to the Moscow Licensed Area (MLA) and 45 percent in the St. Petersburg Licensed Area.
Of the 1.7 million gross additions for the month, mobile operator, MTS, led the charge in Russia, while VimpelCom had the most adds for MLA. The gross additions for July exceeded those in June 2003, when 1.58 million new customers subscribed.
| Top Cellular Operators as of July 31, 2003 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Operator | Total Subs | Moscow Subs |
| 1. MTS | 9,910,000 | 4,295,000 |
| 2. VimpelCom | 7,950,000 | 4,650,000 |
| 3. MegaFon | 4,645,350 | 513,257 |
| 4. SMARTS | 860,000 | n/a |
| 5. Uralsvyazinform* | 837,373 | n/a |
| 6. N. Novgorod Cellular | 268,142 | n/a |
| 7. Tomsk Cellular Communications | 169,926 | n/a |
| 8. Yeniseytelecom | 160,486 | n/a |
| 9. Yekaterinburg-2000 | 155,699 | n/a |
| 10. SibChallenge | 138,000 | n/a |
| * Consolidated all regions and standards (GSM, TDMA/DAMPS, NMT, IS-95) |
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| Source: J’son & Partners; Sotovik | ||
Advanced Communications & Media found that MTS accounted for 37 percent of the market in July 2003, and 32 percent of the net additions for the month.
| July 2003 Operator Breakdown | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | Total Market Share |
Shares in Net Additions |
Moscow Market Share |
Moscow Net Additions |
| MTS | 37% | 32% | 45% | 35% |
| VimpelCom | 30% | 29% | 49% | 49% |
| MegaFon | 17% | 23% | 5% | 16% |
| Other | 16% | 16% | n/a | n/a |
| MCC | n/a | n/a | 1% | n/a |
| Source: Advanced Communications & Media | ||||
