Beeline in Kazakhstan - a bear in the leopard’s lair

Hi habrareyudi. I often read on Habré notes about Beeline and how he behaves in Russia. I would like to highlight a little how it behaves, so to speak, not on its territory. As is well known, the Beeline network is spread in Uzbekistan, Georgia, Armenia and other countries, including my own Kazakhstan. Recently, Beeline has been actively entering the market for the provision of Internet services. And both in the mobile Internet market and in the home stationary connections market. I'll tell you about what I know firsthand, about Beeline in Kazakhstan, and about my relationship with this company.


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I remember my first cellular communication was Activ, back in 2004 my Nokia 3310 sent its SMS and transmitted my voice through the networks of the first-largest cellular operator in Kazakhstan, GSM Kazakhstan. At that time, there were two leading mobile communication players in the market, the aforementioned GSM Kazakhstan with the KCell and Activ and KaR-Tel trademarks with the K-mobile and Exccess trademarks. The situation was simple and clear. Kcell was an expensive operator with high quality service and a large coverage area. And K-mobile took the cost of conversations and was basically a bond of students. Both companies have Turkish roots and it can be said that the Kazakhstani cellular communications market was controlled by Turkish capital.

Due to the high cost of communication, as well as due to the fact that Activ operated (and still operates) a system that limits the duration of your balance, I switched to K-mobile. I felt the difference in the quality of communication instantly, sms could be sent in days, the quality of voice transmission was like that of a walkie-talkie, and the balance mysteriously disappeared, even if I didn’t call anywhere. The future of mobile communications did not seem bright.

But the fast-growing market of Kazakhstani mobile communications forced many players to pay attention to it, including VimpelCom. And in August 2004, VimpelCom acquired the second largest cellular operator in Kazakhstan, KaR-Tel LLP. The amount of the transaction amounted to $ 350 million, in addition, VimpelCom assumed the debt obligations of KaR-Tel in the amount of about $ 75 million. On April 26, 2005, the Beeline brand was officially launched in Kazakhstan.

As of February 7, 2007, the subscriber base of “KaR-Tel” reached 4 million people.

Until July 2007, KaR-Tel LLP also provided services under the K-Mobile and Excess trademarks. Then we saw yellow-black posters, t-shirts, scarves and so on all over the country. Something that can be advertised Beeline can better than Kazakhstan's competitors.

By the way, this was Beeline’s first exit from Russia.

Now the cellular market in Kazakhstan has been divided between the Turkish-Kazakh KCell and the Russian Beeline. If before this, no particular competition in the market was seen, now it has become very sharp and heated, which is only for the benefit of the final consumer.

Here it is worth telling a little about cellular communication in Kazakhstan in general. The fact is that Kazakhstan was spared from such a situation that existed in Russia, in which in each region there could be a mobile operator. In Kazakhstan, the principle of universal coverage of the entire republic by any of the operators has always been applied. But the cost of calls and SMS is much higher than Russian. On average, it is 25-35 tenge (for simplicity, you can apply the formula that 5 Kazakhstani tenge is one Russian ruble) when calling to other operators, and 35-45 tenge when calling to landlines. For any question of why the prices for mobile communications are so high, operators blame the large territory of Kazakhstan and the fact that they have to enter them simultaneously across the country.

After changing the phone numbers to the world standard, Beeline got a very, very beautiful combination of numbers +7777 or 8777. Also, numbers on +7705 or 8705 were inherited from Kar-Tel. Before that, Kar-Tel also had a very good combination of code +7333 or 8333.

After Beeline’s arrival at Kar-Tel, very good changes took place. The quality of communication has noticeably improved, and most importantly, my money has ceased to disappear from my balance. Of course, all this did not happen immediately, but gradually, but apparently in a strange legacy of Turkish management, Beeline will have to figure it out for a long time.

But he did not stop there. Since last year, he began to actively promote the service "USB - Modems". This is a modem (in the “flash drive”) that allows you to use the Internet without connecting a phone to a computer. The flash drive itself is 10 000 tenge. 1 MB costs at least 2.35 tenge when buying click-packages. And it can reach up to 10 tenge per MB. More details on rates here .

The leading Kazakhstani Internet provider JSC Kazakhtelecom is represented in the same market. Its Megaline Mobile 3G is much more profitable in terms of cost because the price here reaches 1.42 tenge per MB. And even with peremimit is not more than 4 tenge per MB. But Beeline’s aggressive advertising campaign is doing its job and people are increasingly buying black and yellow flash drives for their laptops.

Moreover, this year Kar-Tel LLP actively began to promote the home connection service from Beeline. The service is provided in the city of Almaty, not in all districts, but a start has been made and now the war is on for fixed connections. The cost is approximately comparable to the Megaline service from Kazakhtelecom JSC.

But recently, Beeline began to show the bad traits of his character. A couple of months ago, I discovered that my balance sheet had a shelf life, and that after two months, even with an unused balance, this money would evaporate. But I use the number all the time, so I didn’t give this particular meaning. But my mother terribly indignant about the loss of the amount from her phone without warning. For this they have already been fined, but they have not removed this measure. In general, after such steps, you begin to understand that yellow and black, white and fluffy are always only the beginning.

Generally speaking, GSM Kazakhstan and Megaline are for the most part Kazakhtelecom JSC. And a kind of Beeline bear climbed into the lair of this Kazakhstan leopard, and we are now watching the struggle between them. What will come of this - time will tell.

Sources:
Beeline in Kazakhstan .
JSC Kazakhtelecom .
Megaline