PRESS: VIMPELCOM FAILS TO REGISTER BEELINE BRAND IN ARMENIA
Prime-Tass Business News Agency
June 18, 2007 Monday 2:03 PM EET
Russian mobile company VimpelCom has failed to register its Beeline
brand in Armenia, business daily Kommersant reported Monday.
VimpelCom found that Beeline sounded exactly the same as Bi Line,
the brand of a local computer equipment and IT solution vendor. The
Russian company is now in talks with Bi Line on compensation for the
right to use the Beeline brand, a source at VimpelCom told Kommersant,
adding that Bi Line had requested more money than the entire company
itself actually costs.
VimpelCom also said that its current brand ArmenTel Mobile was
well-known and that the delay in re-branding was not critical,
Kommersant reported.
Bi Line may require that VimpelCom pay 5%-10% of revenue from
operations under the Beeline brand, said Andrei Stas, managing partner
at Stas Marketing Partners, the daily reported. That translates into
an annual cost of $4.5 million-$9 million, based on iKS-Consulting
estimate for ArmenTel’s 2006 revenue of $90 million, the daily
reported.
VimpelCom received full control of ArmenTel in April and intended
to re-brand the operator in June-August. ArmenTel is a fixed-line
and mobile operator with licenses in the mobile GSM900 and CDMA
standards. ArmenTel’s subscriber base includes approximately 608,500
fixed-line subscribers and 452,000 mobile subscribers.