MEGAFON PLANS NET PROFIT DOUBLING IN 2003
NOVOSIBIRSK. Dec 16 (Interfax) - The current numbers indicate that cellular provider Megafon will double net profits
this year over last to $150 million, company general director Sergei Soldatenkov has told Interfax.
Sales earnings are forecast at $830-$850 million, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization
(EBITDA) expected at $390 million. Soldatenkov noted that these numbers are also almost twice those of last year.
At Megafon net opening ceremonies in Novosibirsk, he told the press that company investment this year has come to
$400 million, and is planned at $600 million last year. One half of this planned investment will be out of own funds,
the other half from raised funds, he said.
Megafon came into being in May of 2002 with the renaming and changing of the organizational-legal form of
Northwestern GSM and unification with Sonik Duo (Moscow), Mobicom-Kavkaz, Mobicom-Center, Mobicom-Novosibirsk,
Mobicom-Khabarovsk, Mobicom-Kirov, MSS-Povolzhye, Volzhsky GSM and Urals GSM. Megafon has more than 5.7 million
subscribers.
Megafon's main shareholders are the holding Telecominvest (31.3%), TsT Mobile (25.1%), the Swedish company group
TeliaSonera (34.53%) and IPOC International Growth Fund (6.5%).
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