VimpelCom, a leading provider of wireless telecommunications services in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) issued its financial results for third quarter and nine months of 2008 on Tuesday, 25 November.

Subscribers’ base of Unitel LLC, rendering mobile communication services under Beeline trademark in the territory of Uzbekistan, rose by 98.4% year-on-year to 3.148 million users in the reporting period. The market share of Unitel fell from 35.6% in the third quarter of 2007 to 29.8% in the same period of 2008.

The MOU increased from 289.8 minutes in the third quarter 2007 to 298.5 minutes in the reporting period. MOU (Monthly Average Minutes of Use per User) is calculated by dividing the total number of minutes of usage for incoming and outgoing calls during the relevant period (excluding guest roamers) by the average number of subscribers during the period and dividing by the number of months in that period.

ARPU decreased from US$7.6 in the third quarter of 2007 to US$6.5 in January-September 2008. ARPU (Monthly Average Revenue per User) is calculated by dividing the company’s service revenue during the relevant period, including roaming revenue and interconnect revenue, but excluding revenue from connection fees, sales of handsets and accessories and other non-service revenue, by the average number of the company’s subscribers during the period and dividing by the number of months in that period.

Third quarter OIBDA increased by 95.3% year-on-year to US$33 million, while OIBDA margin made up 56.5%. OIBDA is defined as operating income before depreciation and amortization. OIBDA margin is OIBDA expressed as a percentage of total net operating revenues.