OREANDA-NEWS. On 25 December 2008 Open Joint Stock Company "MegaFon", one of the three major Russian mobile operators, announced its financial and operational results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2008.

Key Financial Indicators for the nine months ended September 30, 2008

The Company's consolidated revenue grew 24.9% y-o-y to RUR 127,010 million

The Company's net income grew 28.0% y-o-y, reaching RUR 31,688 million

The Company's EBITDA grew 20.5% y-o-y to RUR 63,274 million

EBITDA margin for the first nine months of 2008 was 49.8%, versus 51.6% in the corresponding period in 2007

The Company's Free Cash Flow reached RUR 23,720 million[1]

The number of the Company's subscribers as of September 30 2008 was 41,550[2] million

Key Financial Indicators for the three months ended September 30, 2008

The Company's consolidated revenue in Q3 2008 increased by 22.9% y-o-y to RUR 46,801 million

The Company's net income grew by 19.1% to RUR 12,350 million y-o-y

EBITDA increased by 18.4% y-o-y to RUR 23,907 million

EBITDA Margin was 51.1%, versus 53.0% in the third quarter of 2007

Sergey Soldatenkov, Chief Executive Officer of OJSC "MegaFon", commented on the results announced today: "We have continued to show strong top line growth through the first three quarters of this year, primarily due to a continued increase in the number of our subscribers and growth in the average revenue per subscriber, which has been driven by a steady increase in subscribers' usage of voice and value added services. We are committed to our goal to become the revenue leader in Russian mobile communications. We are gratified that our customers responded well to our marketing initiatives throughout this year, providing us with revenue growth of 24.9% y-o-y for the nine months ended September 2008. "At the same time we are very aware of the fact that the current global financial crisis may have an adverse impact on our ability to increase our subscriber base and our revenue from the services we offer. We will be closely monitoring this situation going forward, and will be ready to respond with appropriate measures, which include downscaling our capex or operational costs, should we believe that this is necessary."

For the first nine months of 2008, the Company increased its subscriber market share to 23%. Revenue growth of 24.9% during the first nine months of 2008 y-o-y was driven by a growing subscriber base and an increase in revenue per subscriber resulting from higher usage of basic and value added services.

The EBITDA margin of 51.1% for the third quarter of 2008 is lower than in the third quarter of 2007 mainly due to higher interconnection charges as a percentage of revenue.

Although the Company's third quarter 2008 MOU stayed relatively stable at 295 minutes, it remains the highest among mobile operators in Russia.