MegaFon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (October 2006)

MegaFon

Type	OJSC
Founded	May 2002
Headquarters	Moscow, Russia
Key people	Sergey Soldatenkov, CEO
Industry	Mobile telecommunications
Products	Mobile networks
Revenue	▲ $851 million USD (2006)
Operating income	▲ $445 million USD (2006)
Net income	▲ $187 million USD (2006)
Website	www.megafon.ru

This article is about the cellular phone operator

For a sound amplification device, see megaphone.

MegaFon (previously known as North-West GSM) is the third largest mobile phone operators in Russia.^[1] It works in the GSM standard. Its main competitors are Bee Line GSM and Mobile TeleSystems (MTS).

The name "MegaFon" in Russian looks exactly like a word for a megaphone; other connotations are mega- as "big" and fon as "telephone". Its headquarters are located in Moscow.

In 2002 the company changed its name from North-West GSM to MegaFon when it acquired several regional companies, becoming the first GSM company in Russia to cover all its territory.

As of February 2007, MegaFon had 30,657,864 subscribers.

1 Megafon outside Russia
2 Ownership
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Megafon outside Russia

[edit] Tajikistan

MegaFon's only subsidiary outside Russia is Tajikistan's TT Mobile.^[1]

[edit] Uzbekistan

Kommersant reported on September 7, 2006 that MegaFon is negotiating in buying an 85% stake in Uzbek mobile operator Coscom from the MCT Corpation. The other 15% stake in Coscom would be held by Coscom management and private shareholders. Analysts estimated Coscom is worth between USD $180-200 million. Coscom's has over 300,000 customers.^[1]

[edit] Iran

BBC Persian reported on May 13, 2008 that Megafon has opened its office in Tehran. ^[2]

[edit] Ownership

The company was founded by Finnish and Swedish national telecom companies, now merged into TeliaSonera along with the Russian holding company Telecom-invest. As of March 2006

Telecom-invest together with its Bermuda based sister company IPOC International Growth Fund own 39% of the company.
- Jeffrey Galmond, a Danish lawyer publicly claims to own and control both companies, but they are rumored to in fact represent the personal interests of Russian telecommunications minister Leonid Reiman.^[3]
TeliaSonera now owns 36% of the company.
Alfa Group of Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman owns 25.1%.