Russian cellco gets to work in Cambodia

Earlier this week, Global Mobile Daily picked up on developments in Cambodia, where Russian cellco Vimpelcom has made progress with setting up its newest foreign operation. Chinese vendor Huawei has picked up the contract to roll out a nationwide GSM900/1800 network for Sotelco, 90% of whose parent company, Atlas Trade was purchased by Vimpelcom in July this year. This stake was bought from Vimpelcom's largest shareholder, Altimo.

Having just completed the speaker line-up and agenda for our Eurasia Com event (March 31 & 1 April 2009, Istanbul), we continue to watch Moscow-based telcos and investors such as Vimpelcom and Altimo, with a view to assembling another compelling set of presenters for the Moscow event whose discussions are more sharply focused on developments in the Russian Federation itself, as well as neighbouring states Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.

Orange to enter Armenian market?

While conducting our research into developments across the Caspian Sea and Central Asia regions, we've dug out some interesting nuggets of information and opinion from a number of the individual markets concerned. Expect to see all of this reflected in the theme of the discussions at our annual Eurasia Com conference in Istanbul, 31st March & 1st April 2009.

One country we've found particularly fruitful in terms of research respondents is Armenia. One respondent there seems quite confident that the country's mobile market will be joined by a new player in the near future and that the new entrant will be Orange. The France Telecom cellular brand is not a total stranger to former Soviet territory, having established a foothold in Moldova, via the 2007 rebranding of Voxtel. Our friend in Armenia also felt that the entrant is likely to deploy WiMAX in additon to a GSM/W-CDMA network.

Armenia, home to fewer than 3.5 million people, is not a huge market to split between three mobile operators. In the context of the region around it, the country has also been quite well penetrated by the existing two MNOs, one of which is a part of the MTS empire. The other, Armentel (now branded Beeline) is the incumbent fixed-line operator as well as offering mobile services. Beeline, a well-known name across CIS markets, is the brand of the company's new owners, Vimpelcom of Russia.

I wonder, therefore, what any new entrant will be planning in terms of ways to grab market share from these two established players.

Russian telcos heading for Africa?

While I still have my hands full preparing for our GSM>3G Middle East conference in December, I will shortly be turning my attention more fully to Russia and the CIS. We host two gatherings in the first half of the year which are designed to draw together telecoms execs from markets across the former Soviet Union. The first, Eurasia Com, takes place in Istanbul in March, a natural travel and business hub for the Caspian and Central Asian regions the event serves. Further, Istanbul-headquartered Turkcell is a major player in these markets. The Turkish cellco is co-owner (with TeliaSonera) of Fintur Holdings, a company which manages MNOs in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan as well as Moldova. It's therefore important for the event that we get high-level support from Turkcell. In 2008, the company's Chief Strategy Officer Tayfun Cataltepe was among our speakers - and has gone on to become a valued supporter of the wider Com World Series. The previous year, we welcomed Turkcell's Chief Investment Officer Ms. Tulin Karabuk.

Coming up in June, we have another CIS-focused meeting: Russia & CIS Com in Moscow. This gets a different crowd - delegates mainly from the Russian Federation itself, as well as from Ukraine and Belarus. Regarding the latter country, we really boosted the level of the participation. Belarus's incumbent carrier Beltelecom was represented by General Director Konstantin Tikar, who made some very kind comments abou the usefulness of the trip.

At the last two iterations of Russia & CIS Com, we've heard more and more about the plans of some Russian cellcos in terms of exploring the growth potential of markets outside their usual CIS footprint. Earlier this year, a delegation from Iran was very visible, clearly hoping to remind prospective strategic investors of the impending sale of a 3rd national mobile licence in the Islamic Republic. We've also seen Russian telco people showing up at a conference we used to run in Vietnam, clearly interested in that particular market.

It wasn't, therefore, a big surprise to see a news item this morning which indicates that Russian telecoms investment firm Altimo has expressed an interest in Nigerian operator M-Tel/NITEL. We'll encourage Altimo and other Russian groups to get involved at our huge annual pan-Africa event in November: www.ComWorldSeries.com/africa.