Sistema Shyam Teleservices’ MTS Mobile in Kolkata

Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd., a joint venture between Russia’s Sistema and the Shyam Group, will launch CDMA mobile services in Kolkata under the MTS brand, in May 2009. With this joint venture the existing brand Shyam Group’s Rainbow, which has over 0.5 million subscribers, will now be re-branded under MTS services.

Sistema Shyam in a joint venture with Mobile TeleSystems of Russia launched the MTS brand in India in November 2008, and before that, in October 2008, Sistema Shyam launched its mobile service in Rajasthan.

“We are delighted to re-brand Rainbow in Rajasthan to MTS. This is a natural progression to rationalize the mobile telephony offering from SSTL under a single
brand name in India,” SSTL President and Chief Executive Officer Vsevlod Rozanov said.

In the 74:26 joint venture, Sistema will have 74 per cent stake, the remaining being held by Shyam Group.

The services, after being launched in Kolkata, will be extended to other eastern cities said Alexander Chinyaev, Sistema’s chief representative in India.

“We now offer mobile service in Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Kerala and within six months of operations, our subscriber base has reached close to 1 million,” Chinyaev claimed.

As a promotional offer, subscribers of MTS mobile will get 1 million minutes of free talk time, using a smart card called Mcard, and free SMSes for the first 6 months, within Rajasthan.

“The offer would be available if you are using our network,” Chinyaev said.

An Economic Times report says that Sistema has lined up an investment of $1.5 billion for 2009, most of which will be utilised for expansion of the MTS’ network nationally.

So far, it has invested $5 billion in India, Mr Chinyaev was quoted as saying.

Sistema is the largest public sector corporation in Russia operating elecommunications, consumer services and technology sectors.

In the CIS region Sistema has successfully registered 100 million people as subscribers to the MTS brand.