Mobile Content Russia

Subscribers of the Big Three mobile operators are spending more and more time talking. According to the representatives of the mobile companies, first of all the mentioned fact might be related to the improvement in the living standards on the citizens. The most sociable subscribers nominated for registration in the Russian Book of Records spend about 6 hours a day speaking on the phone and send about 100 SMS.

Being late with the launch of Ring Back Tone service, Vimpelcom intends to insist on changing the existing procedure of payment interaction with the given service copyright holders in favor of mobile operators. Megafon stays by Vimpelcom's side, while MTS is against any changes. If the operators do not manage to agree upon the RBT unified format, then, according to experts, the given service promotion in Russia might suffer.

Personnel reshuffles will be announced in Megafon in the near future, CNews found out. Alexander Volkov, head of the North-West subsidiary, will be appointed the company's first vice president. According to analysts, the given appointment might stimulate Megafon 3G network development and help achieve competitive revenue rates across Russia. Rumors regarding the new appointment of Alexander Volkov, North-West Megafon current director, went around before the New Year. However, then no details were announced. The information has appeared literally the other day.

MegaFon announces the results of the annual review of the Company's operations and finances by the major international credit rating agencies. Standard & Poor's (S&P) upgraded the Company's long-term credit rating from BB to BB+ with "positive" outlook. Moody's upgraded the Company's rating from Ba3 to Ba2 stable. Fitch left the Company's rating unchanged at BB stable.

New service is available for MegaFon-Moscow subscribers to provide reliable storage of mobile data such as contact list, calendar and notes. PROSync provides opportunity to synchronize the data with server and restore them in case of occasional removal or a handset loss.

PROSync service operates on a majority of mobiles. The service is ease and user-friendly – just register by SMS or on web-site and your personal data will be under reliable protection. Even if you don't have your mobile at hand, you can get access to your contact list form any point of the world via web-interface.

Azerbaijan, Baku - TrendCapital - Azercell Telecom continues to expand its roaming service coverage for its prepaid subscribers and postpaid subscribers. Now, the roaming service is available for SimSim subscribers in Georgia (Geocell) and Russia (Megafon). Along with this, Azercell Telecom prepaid customers can use roaming services in Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan.

Bermuda fund IPOC and Alpha Group came to an agreement to withdraw counter-claims concerning rights of possession for 25% of Megafon shares, the third largest mobile operator in Russia. Four-year conflict resulted in $20 mln legal fees for the both parties and Alpha Group kept the shares. Megafon was founded in 2002. 35,6% of its shares are owned by TeliaSonera, 25% plus one share by Alpha Group, 8% by IPOC and 31,3% by Telecominvest holding. In the first half of 2007 Megafon reached 14,39 bln. rubles (approximately $570 mln.) of net profit and revenue 63,6 bln.

Nokia has recently announced that Russian mobile operator MegaFon will provide a mobile email service based on Nokia's Intellisync Wireless Email solution. Termed as MegaSync, the hosted service will offer mobile email, improved attachment handling, calendar, contacts and task synchronization to MegaFon's customers.

Top Ten list of content providers for August 2007 has been released. Companies are ranked in descending order according to the income from sales of voice and SMS services to Megafon subscribers through their partnership programme.

1. INFON
2. i-Free
3. Incore
4. SMS Media Solutions / Soyuztelecom
5. Forte IT
6. Telemarket
7. A1
8. Motvet LLC
9. Playfon
10. Plastic Media
11. Avant Mobile
12. Wap Tak
13. Svyaznoy Zagruzka
14. Solvo International
15. Electronic Vostok
16. SDK
17. Artfon
18. Shamrock Games
19. Delfi