OREANDA-NEWS. Mobile TeleSystems PJSC (“MTS” or the “Company” – NYSE: MBT; MOEX: MTSS), the leading telecommunications provider in Russia and Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), global leader in communications technology for people and things, announced a partnership agreement for joint development and deployment of Nokia's new technological solutions to implement innovations strategy and to promote new digital products and services of MTS Group.115671The partnership agreement envisages working out a plan to develop and deploy Nokia technologies and solutions with resources of MTS and IT-competencies of NVision Group, 100%-owned subsidy of MTS and one of the largest system integrators and IT solution providers in Russia. The new solutions will be used to implement MTS renewed strategy aimed at digitization of products and services, as well as internal business processes of MTS Group.

The parties agreed that while developing new products and services for B2B and B2C customers of MTS Group the companies will focus on testing and implementing Nokia's innovative solutions in such areas as IoT, cloud technologies, digital medicine, e-commerce, augmented and virtual reality, convergent 5G networks.

To modernize infrastructure and optimize MTS Group operations, the parties will test and deploy Nokia's innovative technological solutions in the areas of virtual and software-defined networks, common customer service platform, IMS platform, transport networks and software development.

This agreement complements the MTS-Nokia agreement signed in May 2016 about cooperation in 5G network technologies in Russia. In the framework of the previous agreement the parties have already tested 5G data transfer and IoT technologies. In 2018 the companies plan to set up a 5G pilot segment at international sports events in Russia.

"Our strategic cooperation with Nokia has reached a new level. Besides purchasing off-the-shelf products and testing 5G technologies of our partner, we are ready to involve professional skills of numerous IT specialists of MTS and our subsidiary NVision Group in developing, enhancing and implementing Nokia's unique technologies" said Valery Shorzhin, Vice President, Procurement and Administration, MTS. "MTS gradually migrates from the classical telecom operator model towards a multi-profile IT-company focused on offering a wide range of innovative digital services for various purposes. I am sure that joint efforts of our companies will accelerate time-to-market for numerous innovative solutions which will be widely used in 5G networks."

Demetrio Russo, Vice-President, Head of Market Unit East Europe, Nokia, said: “Signing of this partnership agreement is an important milestone in the cooperation between our companies enabling us to address with even more efficiency the ambitious objectives of the MTS Group in its way to the digitalization transformation. Nokia fully understands MTS priorities and is committed to bringing its industry's most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products and service, powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, to further support MTS Group move towards the network of the future”.

"A search for common areas of growth, as well as partnership of the leaders in their respective markets can motivate organizations and whole industries to reengineer business models, generate new ways of interaction with customers, partners and suppliers; optimize and accelerate transformation of IT infrastructure," added Sergei Kuzmin, President, NVision Group. "We are ready to become part of the agreement which is an excellent demonstration of the steps that are necessary for efficient business development in the age of IoT, virtualization, industrial cloud platforms and other not less exciting technologies on the way to digital transformation of economy."