Mobile Content Russia

We'd like to share the video of Antti Viitanen presentation at VI Mobile VAS Conference "What’s next for mobile data?".

Antti Viitanen is director of Digia company. Antti Viitanen is responsible for Digia's international products. Before joining Digia, Antti has worked for 10 years in mobile operator & mobile service industries and 10 years in media industry. He worked for AlmaMedia, Yahoo! Mobile, TeliaSonera and RealNetworks occupying various management positions.


NB: Don't forget to push HD button.

Russian mobile advertising agency MobileDirect has offered master classes on mobile marketing in high schools, and recently has given the first lecture to students of political science faculty in Moscow State University.

Ten years ago special courses on «big internet» were read both to students and teachers in a trial mode. There were neither student books, nor lecture material. Today the history repeats itself with mobile internet. The significant example of the western market and stable mobile market growth in Russia let us say that marketing experts of new generation should have a good knowledge about mobile internet capabilities, so that they could use it in active products promotion on the market.

MTS, the largest cellular network operator in Russia and CIS, has announced 100% acquisition of mobile phone retail chain Teleforum from its earlier owners EWINSER INVESTMENT S.A. (BVI) and a private individual.

The deal totaled 11 million dollars 20% of which the seller will get with the closing of the deal and 80% will be paid out after 12 months subject to fulfillment of several agreement terms, including the compliance of the performance figures of the acquired company with the deal's requirements.

J'son & Partners Consulting presents the key results of Mobile Ad and Marketing research held in August 2009. In the framework of the research the current status and dynamics of Russian and foreign markets have been analyzed. Research provides information about key market trends, mobile ad channels, case-studies.

According to J'son & Partners Consulting research the volume of Mobile Ad market equaled $ 1,39 mln. in 1Q 2009. It is expected that by the end of this year market will increase by 45% in comparison with 2008. In 2008 market showed double rise compared to 2007, despite the fact of overall ad market slowdown.

For the first time capacity of Russian mobile ad network WapStart Plus1 has exceeded 10 million daily ad impressions. On August 11, 2009 WapStart Plus1 served 10 million and 61 thousand banner ads. Since the beginning of the year WapStart ad network capacity grew by 70%.

Primarily this dynamics is caused by increase in number of WapStart mobile partner sites. Mobile web sites believe that cooperation with the network is an effective way to monetize their traffic. Since 2009 WapStart buys out 100% of its partner sites ad traffic.

TELE2 AB announced today that Dmitry Strashnov has been appointed new CEO of TELE2 Russia. Dmitry Strashnov succeeds Donna Cordner as she will be leaving the company.

Dmitry Strashnov has a strong background from his previous roles as Chief Operational Officer at TELE2 Russia, Vice President and General Manager of Consumer Lifestyle Sector at Philips in Russia, General Di-rector of Sales and Marketing at Electrolux in Russia.

Harri Koponen, President and CEO of TELE2 comments: «I am very pleased to announce the appointment of Dmitry Strashnov as new CEO of TELE2's Russian operations. He brings extensive ex-perience of marketing, sales and customer care in the consumer segment to the company.

VimpelCom (which operates under the Beeline trademark) today announced that it has issued Russian ruble-denominated bonds through LLC VimpelCom-Invest, a consolidated Russian subsidiary of VimpelCom, in an aggregate principal amount of 10 billion Russian rubles, which is the equivalent of approximately $ 303 million at today's Central Bank of Russia exchange rate. The bonds are guaranteed by VimpelCom. The bonds are due on July 08, 2014. Interest will be paid semiannually. The annual interest rate for the first four payment periods is 15,2%. VimpelCom-Invest will determine the annual interest rate for subsequent periods based on market conditions. Bond holders will have the right to sell their bonds to VimpelCom-Invest when the annual interest rate for subsequent periods is announced at the end of the fourth payment period.

Inform-Mobil/IMMO has published Top 10 rating of the best-selling Java games for mobile phones and smartphones in Russia in May 2009. As source data for the analysis the company used statistics of mobile games sales through all its distribution channels in Russia during May 2009.

Top three games in the rating are «X-Men Origins: Wolverine», «Monsters vs. Aliens» and «Madagascar 2».

Inform-Mobil/IMMO has published Top 10 rating of the best-selling Java games for mobile phones and smartphones in Russia in April 2009. As source data for the analysis the company used statistics of mobile games sales through all its distribution channels in Russia during April 2009.

Top three games in the rating are «Monsters vs. Aliens», «Madagascar 2», «Watchmen: The Mobile Game», all of them by Glu Mobile.

MTS, the largest cellular network operator in Russia and CIS, has announced the commercial launch of 3G networks in two Russian cities Saratov and Engels. MTS 3G network covers all areas of the two cities and provides data transfer speed up to 3.6 Mb per second. Subscribers who want to use data transfer service in MTS 3G network in Saratov region need to have a 3G enabled handset or they have to be signed up to MTS GPRS service and have PCMCI/USB-modem.

When a subscriber buys «MTS Connect» package (which includes USB-modem and a special data plan «MTS Connect-2»), the subscriber gets 600 Mb of web traffic for free. The free traffic is given out by 100 Mb packages each month during six months since service activation.