Vimpelcom covers the Beeline brand in Ukraine

Vimpelcom Ltd., which controls the Russian Vimpelcom and the Ukrainian Kyivstar, will withdraw the Beeline brand from the Ukrainian market in 2011 and continue to work under the brands "Kyivstar", Djuice and Kyivstar Business, write "Vedomosti" . In the remaining nine countries where Vimpelcom works, Beeline will remain.

At the beginning of September, Vimpelcom under the Beeline brand served 2.48 million subscribers in Ukraine, Kyivstar - 22 million experts believe that Kyivstar in Ukraine is perceived by subscribers as a native, so it is a stronger brand than Beeline.

The rejection of the Beeline brand does not mean that the tariff offers of this operator will cease to be valid and subscribers will be transferred to the Kyivstar tariffs, Kommersant said. Beeline subscribers will be able to use their current tariffs at least until the end of 2011.

By the end of this year, the operator will launch roaming for Beeline subscribers on the Kyivstar network at the Beeline tariffs, which will allow them to use a better network to the previous tariffs. The technical association of networks and the introduction of a single billing should also take place until the end of 2011.

The unification of operators will not do without mass layouts. Of the 6.5 thousand employees of the two companies by 2013, 5.3 thousand people will retain their place. The number of maintenance centers of subscribers and points of sales will be reduced. As a result, the new Kyivstar by 2013 expects to become a leading multi -service operator.

The appearance of Beeline in Ukraine was preceded by a four -year conflict of shareholders of Vimpelcom and Kyivstar - the Russian Altimo and the Norwegian Telenor. Nevertheless, in 2005, Vimpelcom nevertheless reached Ukraine by buying the Ukrainian Radio System operator and starting to provide services under the Beeline brand. The conflict followed, as a result, Tlenor agreed to combine operators in Vimpelcom.

According to the representative of Vimpelcom, only in 2006, in the first year of work in Ukraine, the company invested 500 thousand dollars in the promotion of Beeline. How much was invested until 2010, the representative found it difficult to evaluate.