MTS one of the world’s 100 most powerful brands

Brand valued at $9.2 billion

April 29, 2009 Gurgaon, India: – Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL) the latest entrant in the Indian mobile telephony space, today announced that it’s global brand MTS, has been named as one of the BRANDZ™ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands. MTS joins the ranks of the most powerful brands in the world, for the second year in a row, with a value of $9.2 billion at the 71st position. SSTL, a joint venture between Sistema (LSE: SSA) of Russia and Shyam Group of India, has an agreement with Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (MTS; NYSE: MBT) of Russia, to launch its pan-India operations under the MTS brand.

BRANDZ™ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands, is a ranking published by the Financial Times and Millward Brown, a leading global market research and consulting firm. MTS brand has risen 18 spots to become the 71st most powerful brand globally with a value of $9.2 billion, up from $8.1 billion in 2008. The unequivocal growth in brand value over the year is primarily due to the company’s continued execution on its corporate strategy, strong growth and its leadership positions in the Russian and CIS markets. MTS is already rated as the most valuable Russian brand, and one of the 10 most valuable telecoms brands in the world, as per the 2008 rankings.

“We are delighted to be associated with the MTS brand in India and are confident that this global brand will be hugely successful in cutting a niche in the increasingly volatile and highly dynamic Indian telecom market” commented President and CEO of Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd, Mr.Vsevolod Rozanov.

“Global recognition of our brand strength is a testament to both the success of MTS and the growing interest in our markets of operation. Our rise in the rankings is a strong indication that we are fulfilling our strategy and generating greater affinity for the MTS brand among our customers. Given the sustained growth in our business and recent introduction of the MTS brand to India, we are confident that the MTS brand will continue to strengthen in the coming years “commented Mr. Mikhail Gerchuk, Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of MTS.

SSTL at present provides mobile telephony connections under the MTS brand name, to over 600 towns of Rajasthan, 480 towns of Tamil Nadu, and 190 towns of Kerala.

-ENDS-

About Millward Brown’s Ranking

The BRANDZ Ranking is the only brand ranking based on primary research — it therefore reflects the perceptions of people who really count — brand users and consumers. Derived from BRANDZ database, the world’s largest repository of brand equity data, the BRANDZ study has interviewed more than one million consumers globally and covers 50,000 brands worldwide. The BRANDZ Ranking is the first study to cover both business and consumer brands and to include predictive metrics of future brand performance. Market performance metrics and financial data were obtained from Datamonitor and Bloomberg respectively.

About Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited

Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL) is a joint venture company between Sistema {LSE: SSA} of Russia and Shyam Group of India. Sistema is the majority share holder in this joint venture with a 74% equity stake, along with the Shyam Group, holding a 23.5% stake and the rest 2.5% being public partake. Headquartered in Gurgaon, India, SSTL has licenses and spectrum to provide mobile telephony services in all the 22 circles across the country. Presently, SSTL offers its services in the Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu as well as the Kerala circles. In a recent development, SSTL tied up with Mobile TeleSystems OJSC of Russia to bring the globally acclaimed telecom brand – MTS – to India. MTS intends to create sound value proposition for the subscriber with some strong marketing programmes and innovative schemes.

For further details please visit: www.mtsindia.in

Press contacts:

Shalini Wadhwa

Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd

Corporate Communications Director

Mobile: +91 9667123456

shalini.wadhwa {at} mtsindia(.)in

Esha Banerjee

Gutenberg Communications

Mobile : +91 9810623257

esha {at} gutenbergpr(.)com