MOSCOW, April 4 (Prime-Tass) -- Ukrainian Radiosystems (URS), a subsidiary of Russia?s second largest mobile operator VimpelCom, on April 1 started advertising campaign for VimpelCom's Beeline brand in Ukraine, Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday, citing representatives of URS.
At the moment, URS has advertisements on billboards showing different objects colored in black and yellow, which are the colors of Beeline's brand, while the name Beeline itself will appear on billboards in two or three weeks, the representatives said.
Advertising market participants estimated the advertising campaign at about U.S. $20 million, the daily reported, adding that the Beeline brand would be officially presented on April 10.
A source in VimpelCom said Monday that the brand would be launched on April 11.
VimpelCom entered the Ukrainian market on November 11, 2005, by purchasing URS, which operates under the WellCOM and MOBI brand names, for a total of U.S. $231.3 million.
The WellCOM and MOBI brand names are expected to remain on the market.
URS has a GSM 900 license that covers the entire territory of Ukraine, which has a population of approximately 47.6 million people. URS also has a GSM 1800 license that covers 23 of Ukraine's 27 regions (excluding Kiev, the Kiev Region, the Dnipropetrovsk Region and the Odessa Region).
URS? subscriber base amounted to 271,000 people, or less than 1% of the market, as of February 28, according to Advanced Communications & Media (AC&M).
VimpelCom is a leading international provider of telecommunications services, operating under the Beeline brand in Russia and Kazakhstan.
VimpelCom's consolidated subscriber base totaled 47.170 million people as of February 28.
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Posted to the site on 4th April 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/16823.php