There was a time when two things were considered the key advantages of MTS : the presence of an influential shareholder – AFK Sistema and a historically formed strong subscriber base – a large number of high-quality (i.e. multi-talking) subscribers. The second of these advantages could have been leveled out long ago without special efforts on the part of the company. The first – the influence of the shareholder – could have been shaken after the story with Bashneft.

Nevertheless, MTS remains both the formal and actual leader of the Russian mobile communications market, and this leadership has only strengthened recently. This is evidenced by the reports of the Big Three mobile companies for the first quarter, traditionally weak, and this year also a crisis one. Megafon's revenue has decreased, VimpelCom has shown zero dynamics, and only MTS has maintained growth, albeit small - 3.6% (compared to the same period in 2014). I would even say that MTS's leadership has now become more justified. The company, which was long considered to use the ideas of more proactive competitors, has proven that it is not afraid to experiment and that experiments produce results.

In 2011, MTS was the first in Russia to risk zeroing out the tariff for calls within the network in order to charge money only for mobile Internet access. The result: Internet traffic increased by an order of magnitude. If in the first quarter of 2011 the average Russian MTS subscriber downloaded 216 MB per month, then in the first quarter of 2015 it was already 2.14 GB, according to the operator's data. Now MTS is taking a risk again - it is canceling trade markups on smartphones in its stores, and at the end of the year it promises to introduce reverse subsidies: in two or three years it will return up to 50% of the cost of these devices to smartphone buyers, gradually replenishing their mobile accounts. The logic is approximately the same as with the cancellation of charges for calls: the sale of smartphones as such ceases to be a means of earning money for MTS, the main thing is to stimulate subscribers who have not yet acquired smartphones to do so as soon as possible.

Competitors do not risk following MTS. Their skepticism has a right to exist, especially since in absolute terms, for example, Megafon's Internet traffic per subscriber is even higher (3.19 GB per month in Q1 2015). But, firstly, Megafon's figures also include the figures of Scartel, acquired in 2013. And secondly, there are statistics on the growth rates of all three operators' income from mobile Internet, and they are not in Megafon's favor: its income in Q1 2015 grew year-on-year by only 10.4%, while MTS's grew by 26% (the difference is also explained, however, by the fact that Megafon made good money on mobile Internet in Sochi a year ago as a partner of the Olympics).

Finally, MTS took into account the experience of the 2008-2009 crisis: then both it and VimpelCom reduced investments, while MegaFon increased them – and for several years it pulled ahead in 3G network development and mobile Internet revenues. This time, MTS is breaking records in capital investments, while MegaFon and VimpelCom are reducing them. Of course, this is also a risky policy, especially since MTS is now the main asset generating dividends for AFK Sistema, which lost Bashneft. But so far, MTS has been good at taking risks.

MTS's bet on mobile Internet continues to work