Mobile Content Russia

VimpelCom (which operates under the Beeline trademark) announced that Henk van Dalen will become Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Management Board of the VimpelCom Ltd. group. The appointment will be effective on September 1, 2010.

Henk van Dalen is CFO and a member of the Board of Management of TNT N.V., an international express and mail delivery services company, publicly listed and traded on Euronext Amsterdam, with operations in more than 200 countries and about 160,000 employees. Before becoming CFO of TNT in 2006, Henk van Dalen worked for 30 years at DSM N.V., a Euronext Amsterdam listed company involved in the production of nutritional, pharmaceutical and chemical products. Mr. van Dalen was group CFO of DSM from 2000 to 2006 and managed various divisions in the period 1990 – 2000.

Last week SmsCoin (smscoin.net), world's leading project in terms of provided services and countries offered worldwide had celebrated its fourth birthday. Throughout its existence the project connected 70 countries and for each and every country there is a variety of seven ready-to-use services as well as an abundance of rates to choose from.

VimpelCom (which operates under the Beeline trademark) announced that its Board approved changes to the reporting structure of the Company. The reporting structure will be divided into four business units--Russia, Ukraine, CIS and International--that will report to the Company’s headquarters in Amsterdam.

In connection with the restructuring, Elena Shmatova has been appointed the General Director of OJSC “VimpelCom” and will lead the Russia business unit. The Ukraine business unit will continue to be led by Igor Lytovchenko, President of Kyivstar. The CIS business unit will continue to be led by Dmitry Kromsky.

Russia's Svyazinvest is reported to have suspended plans to merge its mobile network subsidiaries with the smallest of the country's three dominant mobile networks, MegaFon. (Though by some reports MegaFon overcame VimpelCom in April and now it's the second largest mobile operator in Russia in terms of subscribers base - Mobile Content Russia note). A Svyazinvest spokeswoman told Dow Jones News that the company is no longer negotiating with Megafon and the proposal is on hold until next year. No explanation was given for why the talks were suspended.

Svyazinvest is primarily a landline operator, but also owns 14 mobile networks, which operate in four federal districts. The mobile networks had around 16 million subscribers at the end of last year, equivalent to a market share of 9%. A study carried out by consultants, McKinsey recommended merging the networks with another company.

“VimpelCom Ltd.” (“VimpelCom Ltd.” or the “Company”) (NYSE: VIP) today announced that it has delivered the squeeze-out demand notice and related material required to be provided under applicable Russian law to OJSC "Vimpel-Communications" ("OJSC VimpelCom").

As described in VimpelCom Ltd.'s final prospectus dated March 25, 2010, all OJSC VimpelCom shares and American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") not tendered to VimpelCom Ltd. in its exchange offers to holders of OJSC VimpelCom shares and ADSs are subject to a mandatory squeeze-out procedure under Russian law. Today, VimpelCom Ltd. commenced the squeeze-out procedure through which it will acquire all remaining OJSC VimpelCom shares, including those represented by ADSs, for a cash payment of RUB 11,800 per share (which is equal to approximately US$382.18 per share at the exchange rate as of May 25, 2010).

International SMS billing provider SmsCoin announced the introduction of new set of features for its clients. There are 70 countries currently connected to SmsCoin system, and as the company has announced earlier that is hardly the limit. SmsCoin has simplified the process for its partners while working with current and future countries on the list by adding new features to our system. The first feature on the list is already implemented and working properly. This feature is an e-mail notification regarding rates updates. As soon as any kind of change made to rates key parameters as well as adding or removing new parameters takes place, a partner will be notified via your e-mail address.

A mysterious and minor shareholder in VimpelCom (which operates under the Beeline trademark) on Friday withdrew its lawsuit against Telenor, removing the final obstacle for the Norwegian telecoms firm and Alfa Group to merge their stakes in Russia's second-largest mobile operator and Ukraine's Kyivstar.

A federal arbitration court in Tyumen dismissed a decision from a lower court in Omsk, which had ruled in favor of Farimex Products on fining Telenor $1.7 billion.

VimpelCom (which operates under the Beeline trademark) announced that it intends to submit to the Russian Federal Financial Markets Service documentation required for the potential issuance of Russian ruble-denominated bonds through LLC VimpelCom-Invest, a consolidated Russian subsidiary of VimpelCom.

As SmsCoin promised a while ago, this spring is going to be full of surprising news one of which is especially irresistible. At the end of a long journey while looking for better costs, testing technical features in addition to all that has anything do with connecting a new country, we are happy to announce that India is connected at last. There are 4 rates available amongst which 2 USD is the highest one and is considered to be quite acceptable rate as many of our partners think.

India is considered to be the second largest country in the world population wise (1 198 003 000 residents), and is very appealing to many projects worldwide. That is what positively affects India when speaking about rates as oppose to the largest country in the world population wise — China.

In an effort to grab a bigger slice of the pie, LG are starting to tackle new markets. A good example is their new clamshell mobile, the LG GD350 that has just been officially announced for the Russian market. While far from being as smart as the Android devices we’ve seen as of late, the stylish GD350 is more about the looks.