Time to name a winner

Yesterday Vimpelcom announced financial results. They were the last out of "Great Three". I'll discuss the results of "Great Three", current situation and make some predictions.

1. MTS


2. Vimpelcom


3. Megafon

MTS remains the number one MNO as its income is 50.5 blns rubles. The most interesting competition is about second place. Below you may find Megafon feeling of market share.

I believe that it is not far from truth. Megafon was very successful in 4Q with anticrisis actions. Megafon acts according to market: enhanced bonuses, new tariff Prosto and even overall feeling that Megafon is the cheapest MNO helps them. MTS seems to be able not to respond to the crisis because of good financial conditions. But Beeline fastly loose its advantages over Megafon. Almost all projects are frozen, even significant ones. There is no contraction to the new environment. It seems that they don't realize that market changed, that new turns required. Possibly, it is because new top management haven't taken control of the company.

MTS is aggresively launching new projects in order to grow up VAS revenue. Megafon is concentrated on cheap proposals.

I believe that in near future Megafon will become number two MNO, Beeline will go down. It is not a good choice to hold Vimpelcom shares but MTS shares are still underscored I think.

Thanks,
Denis.