Mobile TeleSystems Announces Financial Results for the Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2010

Mobile TeleSystems Announces Financial Results for the Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2010

MOSCOW, November 18, 2010/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mobile TeleSystems OJSC ("MTS" - NYSE: MBT), the leading
telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS, today announces its
unaudited US GAAP financial results for the three months ended September 30,
2010.

Key Financial Highlights of Q3 2010[1]

- Consolidated revenues up 10.8% y-o-y to $2,911 million

- Consolidated OIBDA[2] up 8.2% y-o-y to $1,309 million with a
45.0% OIBDA margin

- Consolidated net income attributable to the Group of $475
million

- Free cash-flow[3] increased in Q3 2010 and reached $2.4
billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2010

Key Corporate and Industry Highlights

- Acquisition of a 95% stake in Metro-Telecom for RUB 339.35
million ($11.01 million[4])

- Acquisition of Multiregion, one of the leading groups of
broadband and cable TV providers in Russia, for $123.5 million

- Decrease in the interest rates on Gazprombank's RUB 6.46
billion facility and on Sberbank's RUB 53 billion facilities

- Completion of a series of transactions involving the sale by
the Comstar group of companies to Rostelecom of the 25%+1 share in the
charter capital of Svyazinvest for RUB 26 billion

- Successful completion of voluntary tender offer to the
Comstar shareholders resulting in the acquisition of 37,614,087
ordinary Comstar shares, or approximately 9.0% of Comstar's issued
share capital

- LTE launch in Uzbekistan - first commercial network in the CIS

- Outlook upgrade of the S&P credit rating from Stable to
Positive

- Affirmation of the Fitch credit rating at BB+/Outlook Stable

- Voluntarily repayment of the second tranche of the
syndicated loan in the amount of $161.5 million; the loan was
originally signed in April 2006 and carried a 5-year maturity

- Redemption of the $400 million Eurobond in October 2010

- Placement of the series 07 and series 08 ruble-denominated
bonds totaling RUB 25 billion

- Transfer of MTS ordinary share to the "A1" listing on the
Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX)

- Completion of 3G deployment throughout markets of operation
with 3G launch in Turkmenistan

- Signing of a non-binding indicative offer to acquire for RUB
11.59 billion ($379.01 million[5]) Sistema-Telecom, whose primary
assets include the distinctive 'egg' trademarks used by MTS and its
subsidiaries

Commentary

Mikhail Shamolin, President and CEO of MTS, commented, "For
the period, we delivered strong sequential and annual growth in all of our
markets of operation. During the quarter we improved Group's revenue 10.8%%
year over year to $2.9 billion dollars. We attribute this growth to the
positive seasonal dynamics, subscriber additions and a general increase in
usage in our core markets."

Alexey Kornya, MTS Vice President and Chief Financial Officer,
said, "We have been very successful in our efforts aimed at optimizing our
debt portfolio. We reached an agreement to lower interest rates on our
Sberbank facilities in the total amount of 53 billion rubles. In line with
our preference for ruble denominated debt, we voluntarily repaid the second -
and last - tranche of our outstanding syndicated loan in the amount of $161.5
million; the loan was originally signed in April 2006 and carried a 5-year
maturity. At the end of the period, non-ruble debt accounted for roughly 37%
of our debt portfolio, but this should decrease by the end of the year."

Mr. Kornya added, "In October we completed the redemption of a
$400 million Eurobond. Just recently, we tapped local debt markets placing
series-07 and series-08 ruble-denominated bonds - a 5-year 15 billion RUB
issue with a coupon of 8.15% and a 7-year 10 billion RUB issue with a coupon
of 8.7%. This makes us the first Russian corporate to solicit 7-year money
from the market, which is a strong statement on our financial position given
the volatility we are now seeing in global capital markets."

Continued Mr. Shamolin, "As you are aware, we are moving
forward with the acquisition of Comstar that creates the largest integrated
telecommunications provider in Russia and the CIS. As a part of the process,
we launched a voluntary tender offer (VTO) to Comstar shareholders for up to
9.0% of Comstar's issued share capital. The VTO was successful, which allowed
us to increase our ownership stake in Comstar to 70.97% of Comstar's issued
share capital (or 73.33% excluding treasury shares). The merger process is
expected to be completed by mid-April 2011 subject to the shareholders'
approval of the transaction and certain regulatory steps. We will seek the
approval from the shareholders of both MTS and Comstar at Extraordinary
General Meetings on December 23, 2010."

He continued, "Earlier this week we signed a non-binding
indicative offer to acquire 100% of Sistema Telecom LLC. As you may recall,
in 2006 Sistema introduced the umbrella brand to link its telecommunications
assets in the eyes of their customers. In the years since, however, the
market has undergone significant changes that saw ownership of many of these
key assets shift to MTS. Today, we are truly operating under a unified brand
to all of our customers and are continuously extending our brand to different
services. Given the prospects we see in our market, we feel it is only
logical to acquire full control of our logos and trademarks to ensure that
all shareholders benefit equally in the brand's further development as we
continue to implement our "3i" strategy."

This press release provides a summary of some of the key financial and
operating indicators for the period ended September 30, 2010. For full
disclosure materials, please visit http://www.mtsgsm.com/resources/reports/.

Learn more about MTS. Visit the official blog of the Investor Relations
Department at http://www.mtsgsm.com/blog/

Mobile TeleSystems OJSC ("MTS") is the leading telecommunications group
in Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, offering mobile and fixed voice,
broadband, pay TV as well as content and entertainment services in one of the
world's fastest growing regions. Including its subsidiaries, the Group
services over 105.2 million mobile subscribers in Russia, Ukraine,
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia and Belarus, a region that boasts a total
population of more than 230 million. Since June 2000, MTS' Level 3 ADRs have
been listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol MBT). Additional
information about the MTS Group can be found at http://www.mtsgsm.com.

Some of the information in this press release may contain
projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or
the future financial performance of MTS, as defined in the safe harbor
provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You
can identify forward looking statements by terms such as "expect," "believe,"
"anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "will," "could," "may" or "might," and
the negative of such terms or other similar expressions. We wish to caution
you that these statements are only predictions and that actual events or
results may differ materially. We do not undertake or intend to update these
statements to reflect events and circumstances occurring after the date
hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. We refer you to
the documents MTS files from time to time with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission, specifically the Company's most recent Form 20-F. These
documents contain and identify important factors, including those contained
in the section captioned "Risk Factors" that could cause the actual results
to differ materially from those contained in our projections or
forward-looking statements, including, among others, the severity and
duration of current economic and financial conditions, including volatility
in interest and exchange rates, commodity and equity prices and the value of
financial assets; the impact of Russian, U.S. and other foreign government
programs to restore liquidity and stimulate national and global economies,
our ability to maintain our current credit rating and the impact on our
funding costs and competitive position if we do not do so, strategic actions,
including acquisitions and dispositions and our success in integrating
acquired businesses, including Comstar-UTS, potential fluctuations in
quarterly results, our competitive environment, dependence on new service
development and tariff structures, rapid technological and market change,
acquisition strategy, risks associated with telecommunications
infrastructure, governmental regulation of the telecommunications industries
and other risks associated with operating in Russia and the CIS, volatility
of stock price, financial risk management and future growth subject to risks.

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[1] Because Comstar-UTS, TS-Retail and Metro-Telecom were acquired from
JSC Sistema, the majority owner of MTS, Comstar, TS-Retail and
Metro-Telecom, the acquisitions were accounted for as transactions
between entities under common control. Similar to a pooling of
interest, whereby the assets and liabilities of Comstar-UTS,
TS-Retail and Metro-Telecom were recorded at Sistema's carrying
value, MTS' historical financial information was recast to include
the acquired entities for all periods presented
[2] See Attachment A for definitions and reconciliation of OIBDA and
OIBDA margin to their most directly comparable US GAAP financial
measures
[3] See Attachment B for reconciliation of free cash-flow to net cash
provided by operating activity
[4] According to the Russian Central Bank exchange rate of 30.8227
RUB/USD as of August 27, 2010
[5] According to the average exchange rate of 30.57 RUB/USD for the
60-day period from September 4, 2010 to November 4, 2010

Source: Mobile TeleSystems OJSC

For further information, please contact in Moscow: Joshua B. Tulgan, Director, Investor Relations, Acting Director, Corporate Finance, Department of Investor Relations, Mobile TeleSystems OJSC, Tel: +7-495-223-2025, E-mail: ir@mts.ru

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