PRESS: MegaFon says ready to fight “irrational war” of price cuts

MOSCOW, Dec 4 (PRIME) -- MegaFon, one of Russia’s biggest mobile operators, is ready to fight “an irrational war for the market” with other firms, business daily Vedomosti reported on Monday quoting MegaFon executives as saying.

CEO Sergei Soldatenkov said that some companies “have lost their nerve”.

“We can see an irrational war for the market, which is manifested in price cutting,” he said.

He did not mention the company, but its rival MTS cut tariffs and increased the volume of services in 10 regions at the end of November.

“Our strategy is simple: we won’t cede a single subscriber,” said MegaFon Commercial Director Wolfson, adding that in case of a further price cut by other operators, MegaFon is ready to cut tariffs and compete with the quality of its services.

Mobile operator VimpelCom, working as Beeline, is watching the competition, its spokeswoman Anna Aybasheva said.

T2 RTK Holding, working as Tele 2, will not react to such behavior, its spokeswoman Olga Galushina said.

T2 RTK Holding will focus on improvement of existing client base on a saturated market and is moving to a better price to quality ratio from just lower prices, Galushina said.

Researcher TMT Consulting’s General Director Konstantin Ankilov said that MTS’s actions are worrisome since they could lead to a new competition war.

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