OREANDA-NEWS. October 23, 2009. Russia’s mobile phone subscriber base continued growing at a stable rate (+0.9%) in September and reached 203.7m SIM cards, reported the press-centre of OTKRITIE Financial Corporation.

View: When looking at the Q3 subscriber base dynamics, we see that the company’s domestic subscriber base climbed 3.4% QoQ (compared to 2.9% QoQ in Q2). During 3Q09, Megafon outpaced its rivals with a 5.7% QoQ increase, while MTS (+1.9%) and Vimpelcom (+2.1%) posted more modest gains. Meanwhile, Tele2 grew 13% QoQ on the back of its expansion into 7 new regions. The worst performer was Uralsvyazinform, which saw its base decline by 3% QoQ.

Valuation: Vimpelcom trades at a 2009E EV/EBITDA of 6.6x, with the corresponding figure for MTS at 6.3x.

Action: Positive subscriber statistics for September underpin the recovery that we expect on the Russian mobile market in Q3 and Q4. Vimpelcom is our preferred play among Russian mobiles.