Write-downs condemn Turkcell into posting a loss (Turkey)
Turkcell is a telco based in Turkey. The company has released its Group revenues for the second quarter that reflected a revenue rise by 1.7% to $1.34 billion. However, the company posted a net loss of $12.6 million as compared to $251.02 million the previous year.
The company attributed the loss to one-off items below the EBITDA line that cascaded from the impact of the non-cash devaluation in Belarus, in addition to a provision with regard to the Competition Board fine. Discounting the one-off items below the EBITDA line, the net income for the Group would have stood at $280.80 million.
On the other hand, consolidated revenues were up 7.6% as compared to the previous quarter; mainly attributed to the 6.9% increase in mobile voice, in addition to revenues garnered from season-based superior usage of the expanding customer base across Turkey as well as the surge in mobile internet and services revenues by 9%. On top of that, the Group’s top line rose by 9.1%, in the wake of the subsidiaries’ contribution.
As on 30 June, 2011, there were about 61.7 million subscribers for the company; figure calculated based on the number of subscribers in Turkcell, in addition to each of its subsidiaries and unconsolidated investees. Mobile subscribers in Astelit and BeST, in addition to the company’s operations in Northern Cyprus and Fintur were also taken into account.
In the wake of the rise in the number of subscribers in Turkcell Turkey and Fintur, there was an increase of 1.3 million Turkcell Group subscribers, in comparison to the last quarter.
MTS Belarus considers another rate hike
MTS Belarus is considering raising its rates again. According to reports, the operator increased prices on 24 May.
Euroset launches online shops
Euroset ,a mobile retail chain in Russia, has expanded its online shop chain with the launch of online shops in the following places: Saratov, Penza, Ulyanovsk and Naberezhnye-Chelny.
Presently, the chain owns 8 online shops in the Volga federal districst, Itar-Tass reported. Euroset owns a total of 39 online shops in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
MTS Belarus offers automatic top-ups
MTS Belarus has expanded its payments services with the launch of automatic top-ups for subscribers who are also customers at BPS Bank.
This new service automatically tops up the mobile account from the bank when needed. BPS-Bank is the fifth Belarusian bank to offer this service to MTS Belarus customers.
MTS launches online top-ups from Russia to Belarus
MTS has now started offering a new service to send top-ups from Russia to subscribers of MTS Belarus.
Using the operator’s website, the service is offered in cooperation with the Qiwi-Wallet payments system.
The commission fee is 3%, plus US$0.35 for a SMS confirmation of the payment. The sum of the top-up can vary from US$0.03 to US$532.74.
The amount is converted into Belarusian currency according to the rate of the Russian Central Bank, excluding the 2% fee.
MTS expands roaming services (Belarus)
MTS Belarus has increased the number of its roaming partners to 431 operators in 175 countries and territories.
The company’s GPRS roaming services will now be accessible in 316 networks in 139 countries and territories. 3G roaming can be used in 144 networks of 82 countries and territories.
Opera Mini browser surpasses 107.1 mn users mark in April
Opera Mini browser had over 107.1 million users in April an increase of 4.6% from March. With this percentage Opera Mini browser has grabbed the top position as the world’s most popular mobile browser.
Indonesia and the Philippines are on top of user participation on social networks. More than 77% of mobile web users in these countries visit Facebook.
Opera Software itself has more than 400,000 users on Facebook alone. The top ten countries using the Opera Mini browser in the region are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan.
From April 2010 to April this year, page views in the top ten countries of the CIS increased by 198 percent, unique users increased by 65 percent and data transferred increased by 176 percent.
SmartLabs enabled MTS Home TV subscribers with Omlet.ru
SmartLabs has announced that subscribers of interactive digital television MTS Home TV have now gained access to the Omlet.ru multimedia entertainment directory.
Since 2009, Omlet.ru offers access to a wide variety of multimedia content. It has gained popularity and earned the trust of its users by high video quality and wide choice of content. In view of this, MTS decided to integrate Omlet.ru into the MTS existing IPTV service to further enhance its digital TV offering actively promoted under the MTS Home TV brand.
To provide the Home TV services, MTS applies the SmartTUBE SDP converged platform from SmartLabs, a leading technology provider for IPTV operators. Hence Omlet.ru movies section merger with MTS Home TV required integration of SmartTUBE platform with this portal.
To solve this task, SmartLabs experts developed the mechanism to import the data from the Omlet.ru storage to MTS and to provide Home TV subscribers with access to the constantly updated catalogue of video content. Also, this involved embedding of the Omlet.ru access application into SmartTUBE UI application used in MTS Home TV set top boxes.
As a result of the project, the subscribers of MTS Home TV in Moscow and the Moscow region have got an access to a huge collection of Omlet.ru videos. MTS subscribers can pay for the service from their mobile accounts. For third party subscribers, SMS payments are supported. The new service runs on all set top boxes provided by the operator for the MTS Home TV service.
“The key goal of SmartLabs is to offer our customers – IPTV operators – new opportunities to grow their business. With flexibility and power of the SmartTUBE SDP platform run by MTS, you can easily and quickly expand the list of available services, as again proven by embedding the Omlet.ru application into the MTS Home TV service,” SmartLabs CEO Mikhail Grachev says.
“Each user of MTS Home TV can now push a button and easily gain legal access to Omlet.ru new and bestseller videos. More than 2.8 million families have become MTS TV viewers in Moscow and across Russia. We see a great potential in growing this audience by evangelizing digital TV, providing legal content and easy-to-use mobile payments, as well as telco’s bundled offerings,” MTS New Media Director Inna Shalyto said.
About the companies
Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (“MTS”) is the leading telecommunications group in Russia and CIS. MTS serves a total subscriber base of over 100M subscribers (MTS Belarus exclusive). MTS and its branches provide GSM services in 82 Russian regions, Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine and Uzbekistan; UMTS services in all Russian regions, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Belarus; CDMA-450 services in the Ukraine. Also, MTS offers fixed voice and cable TV services in all the federal regions of Russia, in Ukraine and Armenia. MTS pay TV audience has exceeded 2.8M households, and its broadband subscriber base is 1.8?. For the third year in a row, MTS was named Russia’s most valuable brand, according to BRANDZ™ 2010 Top-100 list published by the Financial Times and Millward Brown, a leading global market research and consulting firm. Since July 2000, MTS has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker MBT. For more details, please visit www.mts.ru.
SmartLabs is a Russian company and a leader in the development of service delivery platform for interactive digital television (IPTV, DVB, hybrid, satellite, Internet TV), innovative client applications and user interfaces, next generation STBs, and other innovative solutions for service providers and enterprises. For more details, please visit www.smartlabs.tv.
Yota Bel installs network in Minsk, upgrades in Grodno (Belarus)
Yota Bel, a subsidiary of Russian company Yota, has upgraded its Wimax network in Grodno and deployed a network in Minsk.
The operator launched 17 base stations in Grodno in 2010. Yota Bel’s Wimax network covers around 75 percent of the city’s area and offers up to 10Mbps broadband speed, according to Sergey Bespalov, the CEO of the operator.
The full commercial exploitation of the network has been postponed until the operator decides how to redistribute its frequencies.
Life:) Belarus signs payment deal with Belarus National Bank
Life:) Belarus has started using the payments system of the Belarus National Bank.
The system is available to all corporate and resident subscribers, who can use to oay for services via in outlets and ATMs of 23 Belarusian banks.
