PJSC VimpelCom ( or full name , ''PAO «

Vympel Directorate "V" of the FSB Special Purpose Center, often referred to as Spetsgruppa "V" Vympel ( pennant in Russian, originated from German , and having the same meaning), but also known as KGB Directorate "V", Vega Group, is a stand-alone su ...

-Kommunikatsii»'') is a Russian telecommunications company started in 1992 when its co-founders, Dr.

Dmitry Zimin Dmitry Borisovich Zimin (; 28 April 1933 – 22 December 2021) was a Russian radio scientist and businessman, who was the founder and honorary president of PJSC VimpelCom, VimpelCom. From his retirement in the early 2000s, he became known as a ...

and Augie K. Fabela II came together to pioneer the Russian mobile industry. Augie Fabela, who was then a young entrepreneur from the US, and Dr. Zimin who was a Russian scientist in his 50s, together launched the Beeline brand. PJSC VimpelCom is the third-largest wireless and second-largest telecom operator in Russia. VimpelCom's main competitors in Russia are

Mobile TeleSystems MTS (Mobile TeleSystems) () is the largest telecommunications company and mobile network operator in Russia and Belarus, headquartered in Moscow, operating on GSM, UMTS, LTE and 5G standards. Apart from cellular network, the company also offers ...

and

MegaFon MegaFon () is the second largest mobile phone operator"МегаФон" б ...

. PJSC VimpelCom's headquarters is located in Moscow. In 1996-2010, traded as . It was wholly owned by

VEON VEON Ltd. (formerly VimpelCom Ltd.), also known as VEON Group, is a multinational telecommunication and digital services company. Headquartered in Dubai, the company is publicly traded on the U.S.-based NASDAQ stock exchange. VEON operates in s ...

, although in the process of being sold after VEON announced the sale of their Russian operations in November 2022. In 2022, the company's revenue amounted to 280 billion rubles. VEON completed the sale of PJSC Vimplecom in October 2023, with Aleksander Torbakhov serving as PJSC Vimplecom CEO.

History

The company was founded in 1992 in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and initially operated AMPS/

D-AMPS Digital AMPS (D-AMPS), most often referred to as TDMA, is a second-generation ( 2G) cellular phone system that was once prevalent throughout the Americas, particularly in the United States and Canada since the first commercial network was deploy ...

network in Moscow and Moscow Oblast. The brand " Beeline" was created in 1993. PJSC VimpelCom also acquired companies such as Russia-On-Line in 1999, Cityline and EDN Sovintel in 2001, and Corbina Telecom in 2006. It had also acquired Global TeleSystems (GTS),

SovAm Teleport The Internet in Russia, Russian internet (also known as the runet) is a part of the Internet with its main content in Russian. According to data from August 2019 and studies conducted by W3Techs, 6.5% of the 10 million most popular Internet sites ...

, GlasNet,

SLTMobitel Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (, ), doing business as SLTMobitel, is the national telecommunications services provider in Sri Lanka and one of the country's largest companies with an annual turnover in excess of Rs 100 billion. The company provides dom ...

, E-Mobile, and Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E.. In 1996 OJSC VimpelCom became the first Russian company listed on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

(). In 1997 the company began

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

network roll-out and in 2001 it started GSM networks throughout Russia's regions. On February 29, 2008 OJSC VimpelCom completed a merger with

Golden Telecom Golden Telecom is an internet services provider in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It was acquired by VimpelCom in 2007. History Founded in 1996 by the global corporation Global Telesystems ("GTS"). NYSE-listed Global Te ...

. In October 2008 OJSC VimpelCom acquired a 49.9% stake in

Euroset Euroset () was Russia's largest mobile phone retailer, with over 5,000 stores across Russia and Belarus. In 2006, the company controlled 37% of the Russian mobile retail market and in 2010 it employed some 27,000 people. Its main rival was Svyazn ...

, the largest mobile retailer in Russia and the CIS. In 2010 the ticker “VIP” was transferred to VimpelCom Ltd. holding. In February 2017, VimpelCom renamed itself

, after the messaging platform that it had developed. On April 14, 2005, the company decreased its net income in 2002 and 2003 as a result of this restatement: 2002 - $2.8 million or 2.2%, 2003 - $5.2 million or 2.2%. On November 24, 2022, VEON announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell its Russian subsidiary PJSC VimpelCom to the subsidiary's local management team. PJSC VimpelCom was valued at approximately $6.1 billion under the agreement.

Owners and management

CEO - Torbakhov Alexander Yurievich. President - Pankov Alexander Alexandrovich.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Telecommunications companies of Russia Internet service providers of Russia Mobile phone companies of Russia Companies based in Moscow Telecommunications companies established in 1992 1992 establishments in Russia Telenor VEON