Russian Mobile Content News
Weekly Newsletter

Solvo and MTS offering a car for i-mode
A mobile content provider Solvo International and a cellular operator MTS organized a quiz aimed to promote i-mode in St. Petersburg. The quiz participants called to the service number 0577 ($0.75 + VAT per minute) answering multilevel questionnaire about MTS company, its services, tariffs and i-mode. A Ford Focus 2 car (about $20,000 in price) was offered as the Grand Prix; an LCD TV set and a DVD player were rewarded to the second and the third quiz winners. Some other winners received i-mode phones Nec N311i and i-mode watches. Stanislav Kim, 31 y.o. citizen of St. Petersburg, has received the Grand Prix. He gained the highest score in answering questions, made several calls to the quiz number and spent about $200 online. Ruslan Gurgijan, MTS' marketing director, considered the action as a very successful. Over 100,000 people has participated in the quiz.
Source: http://www.spbit.ru

Belarus' First Music Telechannel play-list formed by SMS
A Russian VAS provider Inform-Mobil enriched its infotaiment resource www.jmi.by in Belarus by TV section. Belarus' users of cellular operators MTS, VELCOM and DIALLOG can vote for TV clip ratings and make a play-list on the First Music Telechannel by SMS.
Source: http://www.mforum.ru/news/article/017813.htm

Mobile TV running in St. Petersburg
Megafon launched a mobile TV service in the North-West region of Russian. From December 20 2005 the service users can receive TV news, films and music clips to their mobile phones. In particular, RBC-TV, Muz-TV, 5 Channel and Ladies Tele Club TV channels and programmes are available online. Mobile TV service is available to Megafon's Mobile Internet (GPRS) customers and to Wi-Fi users of Megafon Norht-West. In Moscow Megafon is running a similar service for over a year, but it's still a niche product.
Source: http://www.spbit.ru

Sistema's owner Evtushenkov flays MTS top management
Vladimir Evtushenkov, Sistema's president and main owner, has criticized the top management of MTS, a subsidiary of the holding. According to Evtushenkov, MTS management is responsible for a very low capitalization growth of the company (5% in 2005), in contrast to 52% capitalization gain of VimpelCom, its major competitor. MTS is the largest cellular operator in the Central and Eastern Europe, serving 54.1 mln customers in Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Belarus. One of the largest Russian financial and industry group Sistema owns 50.4% of MTS. About 40% of MTS in ADR are trading at NYSE. In 2004 MTS revenue was $3.9 bln with $1 bln profit. From December 20 MTS' ADR price went up from $33 to $34.7, while VimpelCom's ADR raised from $28.16 to $43.06. By the end of 2004 MTS' customer base exceeded VimpelCom's one in 600,000 users. By July 2005 the difference has dropped to 60,000 users. In particular, Evtushenkov pointed out MTS problems with PR and said that MTS growth was below the market.
Source: http://www.vedomosti.ru

Evroset offers SMS communication with Ded Moroz (Santa Claus)
One of the largest Russian mobile phone dealers Evroset launched a service allowing users to communicate with the Russian Christmas characters -- Ded Moroz (a Russian Santa Claus) and Snegurochka, his daughter. Evroset- Content, a mobile content subsidiary of Evroset, and Ded Moroz Mail company offering a collection of Christmas content over a WAP site. A person who sends the latest SMS to Ded Moroz on December 31 will receive a Christmas gift of Sony Ericsson W800 mobile phone.
Source: http://www.Helpix.ru

Jife sells mobile content over cash-in terminals
VAS provider Jife launched a service to buy mobile content at cash-in self-service terminals. The service is available in the main Siberian cities where Multi-Kassa and Terminal- Sibir companies installed over 500 cash-in terminals. Jife is the first content provider offering such a service in Siberia.
Source: http://www.mforum.ru/sub/content/news/017884.htm

Neva Line joins Russian VAS provider association
St. Petersburg's content provider Neva Line, a 100% subsidiary of Moscow's MTT (Inter-regional Transit Telecom) has joint the Content and Service Provider Association. Neva Line was founded by St. Petersburg's Telecominvest (one of three largest Russian telecom holdings) and by Canada's Newbridge Networks Corp in 1996. Later it was transfered to MTT, a leading Russian telecom wholesaler. In 2004 Neva Line changed its core business to mobile content and call center services. The Russian VAS provider association (CSPA) was established in 2005 by i-Free, INFON, Jippii and Nikita Mobile. The association initiative was announced at the I Mobile VAS Conference in St. Petersburg in December 2004. CSPA aims to developing coordination between the VAS market players, lobbying VAS provider interests through cellular operators, controlling mobile service quality, fighting with intellectual property piracy.
Source: http://www.mforum.ru/news/article/017912.htm

INFON acquired by Monstermob
According to Monstermob Group's release at the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the British company "acquires Mobicon, Russia's leading mobile entertainment content provider. Mobicon owns and operates a number of highly recognised mobile content brands and the directors of Monstermob believe it to be the leading Russian mobile content player by market share. In the 10 months to 31 October 2005, Mobicon recorded un-audited net revenues of US $15.1m and EBITDA of $2.6 m. Un-audited net assets at 31 October 2005 were $2.1m. In the 10 months to 31 October 2005, Mobicon recorded un-audited EBITDA of $2.6m on net revenues of $15.0m." The deal details: total investment of $27m, "$5m in cash, $2.5m in Monstermob shares, a further $2.5m will be paid in shares six months following completion, $5m in loan notes repayable as to principal in three instalments. The contractual consideration cap is $55m." The intrigue is that nobody knows Mobicon in the Russian VAS market and never heard of till the Monstermob's release on December 28. According to market analysts Mobicon is associated with the second largest Russian VAS provider INFON. As ComNews has found out, in August 2005 INFON's Russian owners sold the company (Rustar Holding legal entity) to a venture fund Coral Management registered at the British Virgin Isles. Pavel Kolesnikov, one of the Rustar Holding ownes, noted they received in ten times less than Monstermob Group is about to pay for Mobicon. Coral Management started to restructure the business based on a new legal entity -- Mobicon. Mobicon has acquired INFON's trade mark, enrolled majority of the Rustar Holding staff and started to sign new contracts with cellular operators and with right owners for mobile content development. In October 2005 Coral Management started negotiations with Monstermob Group which is currently entering such markets as Philippines, China and Mexico. (In August 2005 Monstermob bought a Chinese content provider ATOP Century for around $100 mln.) In December 2005 the negotiations were completed. According to the deal, the seller could receive less than $27 mln if INFON's monthly EBITDA is below $400,000. "We are delighted that MonsterMob has entered Europe’s largest mobile phone market through this acquisition," said MonsterMob's CEO Martin Higginson to The Daily Telegraph. Monstermob Group is not going to impact on INFON's day-to-day operations, nor assigning its managers to the Russian company. Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, who own The Daily Telegraph, hold a 5.2% stake in MonsterMob.
Source: http://www.comnews.ru
http://miranda.hemscott.com/servlet/HsPublic?context=ir.access&ir_option=RNS_NEWS&item=31488552732359&ir_client_id=4510
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/12/28/umonster.xml&sSheet=/money/2005/12/28/ixcitytop.html

Next Media releasing SMS game in Bulgaria
Shamrock Games, a subsidiary of Moscow's Next Media, signed a contract with Bulgaria's content provider VoiceCom to release its SMS game Dedy Otmorozy in the Bulgarian market. The game was launched in Russia in 2003. Since 2006 that multi-user game will be available to three million users of Bulgaria's cellular operator M-Tel. Shamrock Games, based in Novosibirsk and Moscow, is one of the Russian mobile game development leaders.
Source: http://www.mforum.ru/news/article/017971.htm

Citibank Russia stealing clients' money
If you are feeding up your bank account with cash over your bank's ATM, you are expecting to have the entire amount deposited on your bank account. But not, if you are a client of Citibank Russia, a Russian subsidiary of Citibank, a Citigroup member. In my case $90 of $250 deposited over Citibank Russia's ATM to my Citibank account has disappeared. In a similar case with my friend the difference was even over $1,000. If you encountered a service problem with your bank, you are expecting from your bank to solve the problem and official apologies. But not, if you are a client of Citibank Russia. A link to the full story is in the next issue of the Newsletter.

The next issue of the Russian Mobile Content News will appear on January 15 as December 31 - January 10 are official holidays in Russia.

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