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Wireless Federation » archive for 'Kyivstar'

Telenor on the brink of swap deal with Alfa (Norway, Ukraine)

  • October 7th, 2008
  • 1:13 pm

Telenor is very near to an asset swap deal with its Russian investment partner and regular courtroom opponent Alfa Group, which would see Alfa receive a 5% stake in Telenor, media reported. This deal would also involve Alfa handing over its subsidiary Storm’s entire 43.5% stake in Ukraine’s mobile market leader Kyivstar to Telenor, which would in turn transfer around 12% of its 29.9% voting shares in Russian cellco Vimpelcom to Alfa; Kyivstar is currently majority controlled by Telenor, while Alfa is the dominant shareholder in Vimpelcom. 5% stake in telenor woulb be handed  to Alfa’s telecoms arm Altimo by the Norwegian government. Presently it has 54% interest in the multinational fixed line, mobile and broadband operator.

Astelit takes over Vimpelcom and MTS with 60% of total subscriber addition in Ukraine (Russia)

  • September 19th, 2008
  • 6:18 am

The mobile subscribers in Russia reaches 177.3 million with the end of August, a rise of 13.6 million from last year and an addition of 1.6 million in the month of August. The penetration has been huge and has crossed 122%, based on the reponse from the major cities. There were 174 SIM cards in use per 100 population in Moscow at the end of last month and 159 in St Petersburg, showing a new trend in penetration.
With all the additions in Moscow, the leading operator MTS posted a negative growth for the month of August, with a falling subscriber base, from 61.86 million to 61.48 million. Though it still retained it’s top position with 34.7% market share.
Megafon had performed strongly in August, with the total market share of 22.4%. Its subscriber base rose to 40.57 million from 39.72 million.
Vimpelcom, claims 43.8% of new additions, taking its subscriber base to 44.26 million and its market share to 24.4%.
The country’s top two operators MTS and Vimpelcom posted slow growth in Ukraine and the number three player, Astelit, took over with 60% of the total subscribers added. It’s subscriber base rose to 10.58 million with the market share of 19%.
Vimpelcom added just over 100,000 subscribers in August, to boost its subscriber base to 2.37 million, but with a market share of 4.2%.
Kyivstar and number two operator MTS added around 10,000 and 2,500 subscribers respectively, with the Ukraine’s total subscriber base moving to 55.72 million from 55.31 million in July. Penetration stood at 120.6%.

   

Kyivstar refused 3G license by Ukranian Court (Ukraine)

  • July 21st, 2008
  • 2:30 pm

Ukraine’s Kyiv Appellate Administrative Court overturns a ruling in favour of Kyivstar getting a 3G license. Earlier the commercially-owned mobile operators were not granted 3G licenses, citing a failure by the operators to reach an agreement with military bodies on joint usage of the frequencies.

Ukrtelecom, the only 3G license holder in Ukraine, received the license in late 2005 in an auction, in order to boost the value of the firm prior to privatisation. Ukraine’s two top cellular operators, Kyivstar and UMC wrote to the President, Viktor Yushchenko protesting at how the license was awarded and demanding an open tender be carried out and called for clear and even rules.

   

Kyivstar completes traffic capacity upgrade

  • May 28th, 2008
  • 2:41 pm

Ukraine’s largest cellco by subscribers Kyivstar has completed an upgrade of its nationwide network using DWDM technology , giving it an eight-fold increase in maximum traffic capacity to 320Gbps, the company said in a press release.The project, which took two years, allows Kyivstar to serve four million mobile users simultaneously within two network units, whilst protecting mobile traffic from malfunction, according to the operator. Kyivstar, majority-owned by Norway’s Telenor, had 23.69 million GSM subscribers at the end of March, up by 7.9% year-on-year, giving it a 46.3% market share.

   

 

 

 

Telenor sued……. again

  • April 19th, 2008
  • 9:20 am

Norwegian telecoms group Telenor’s Russian unit is being sued for USD3.8 billion in a Siberian court by a minority shareholder in Russian mobile network operator Vimpelcom. It follows a nearly identical claim for USD1 billion made by Eco Telecom, part of Russia’s Alfa Group, in March. A Telenor news release said ‘The lawsuit’s claims against Telenor are that Telenor harmed Vimpelcom by preventing Vimpelcom from purchasing [Ukranian mobile operator] Kyivstar and delaying Vimpelcom’s purchase of [another GSM operator] Ukrainian Radio Systems’. The latest suit was filed by Farimex Products, a British Virgin Islands company, but court records did not reveal who owns the company. Farimex only owns shares worth USD800,000 making it hard to see how it can justify claiming USD3.8 billion in damages.

In August 2007 Telenor won an arbitration case in a New York court, which ordered Alfa Group to either sell its 43.5% share in Kyivstar or reduce stakes in certain other competing operators. Alfa chose to comply with the latter option by reducing its minority stake in Turkey’s Turkcell (the majority owner of Ukrainian cellco Astelit), and agreeing to sell its entire stake in WiMAX operator Ukrainian High Technologies (aka Alternet). Telenor owns 56.5% of Kyivstar, and holds 33.6% of the common stock of Vimpelcom, which is 37% owned by Alfa through its telecoms arm Altimo.

   
 

Russia’s Altimo sues Telenor over Ukraine

  • March 26th, 2008
  • 2:36 pm

Altimo, the telecoms arm of Russian private equity group Alfa, had filed a €639.5 million (US$1 billion) lawsuit against Norwegian operator Telenor because it delayed Vimpelcom’s entry to Ukraine, a Reuters report said.

The lawsuit arose from Telenor allegedly breaching a shareholder agreement concerning Vimpelcom, Russia’s second largest mobile operator.

The lawsuit was filed by Alfa’s subsidiary Eco Telecom with an international arbitration tribunal in Geneva, according to the Reuters report: Alfa has been locked in a legal dispute with Telenor for years over the direction of Vimpelcom, in which Alfa holds 44% of voting stock to Telenor’s 30%.

Telenor also owns 56.5% of Kyivstar, Ukraine’s leading mobile phone company and Alfa has the remainder.

Altimo said Eco Telecom assessed losses to Vimpelcom shareholders to stand at €1.72 billion (US$2.7 billion) because of the actions taken by Telenor to prevent Vimpelcom’s expansion into Ukraine – namely acquiring Ukrainian RadioSystems , a mobile operator competing with Telenor-controlled Kyivstar.

Alfa recently lost two arbitration proceedings brought by Telenor related to Vimpelcom and Kyivstar, the report concluded.

   
 

Telenor profits under pressure in Q4 (Norway)

  • February 13th, 2008
  • 3:04 pm

Telenor reported fourth-quarter revenues up 10 percent from a year earlier, to NOK 26.914 billion, pro forma for its holding in Ukraine’s Kyivstar. The EBITDA margin however fell to 32.8 percent from 33.4 percent a year earlier, amid tough market conditions in a number of countries. In particular, Telenor’s home market Norway had a “disappointing” performance, prompting the company to announce cost-cutting plans for the mobile operations there. The group’s net result came in at NOK 5.869 billion, down from NOK 6.205 billion a year earlier. For 2008, Telenor forecast revenue growth to slow to around 5 percent and an EBITDA margin of over 31 percent. Capex is expected to remain at around 20 percent of revenues, driven by high subscriber growth in emerging markets, after spending NOK 22.1 billion in 2007.

   
 

Kyivstar adds 270,000 subscribers in January (Ukrain)

  • February 11th, 2008
  • 12:47 pm

Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar reached a total of 23.872 million subscribers as of 1 February, some 270,000 more than on 1 January. The number of prepaid customers rose to 12.58 million from 12.37 million at the start of the year, and Djuice subscriptions increased to 9.22 million from 9.19 million a month earlier. Mobilych subscribers reached 0.813 million. The number of contract and corporate clients reached 1.25 million compared to 1.24 million on 1 January.

   

Telenor lowers FY outlook to 1% sales growth (Norway)

  • October 25th, 2007
  • 12:37 pm

Telenor has lowered its outlook for 2007, due to appreciation in the Norwegian kroner and lower-than-expected growth at its Thai unit DTAC. The company now expects revenue growth of just 1 percent this year, versus a previous estimate for 3-5 percent, while the EBITDA margin is now estimated at over 31 percent versus around 32 percent before. Capital spending is expected to remain at around 20 percent of revenues. For the third quarter, Telenor reported revenues down at NOK 21.135 billion versus NOK 23.255 billion a year earlier. That excludes its Ukraine affiliate Kyivstar, which has been de-consolidated due to a legal dispute. EBITDA fell to NOK 7.477 billion from NOK 9.154 billion a year earlier, while net profit increased to NOK 4.453 billion from NOK 3.781 billion thanks to a one-gain from selling its satellite division.

   

Ukraine’s mobile users base hits 53 million (Ukraine)

  • October 8th, 2007
  • 2:55 pm

Ukraine ended August with 52.58 million mobile users, up from 51.85 million at end-July, according to figures from Advanced Communications & Media (AC&M). Kyivstar holds a 43.3 percent share of the market, followed by Mobile TeleSystems, which operates under the UMC brand, with a 37.9 percent share and Astelit (life :) )with a 13.2 percent share. URS (VimpelCom) holds a 4.9 percent share of the Ukrainian market while other operators only hold 0.5 percent.