Comstar to focus on regions, new acquisitions

Russian service provider Comstar-UTS had 1.3 million broadband customers at the end of last year, up 40% year-on-year and up 6% quarter-on-quarter.

Sergey Pridantsev, the company’s CEO, said that key strategic objectives for 2010 included a restructuring of the ownership of Comstar-UTS in Svyazinvest, the drive to increase penetration of broadband and pay-TV in the regions and the acquisition of other assets that proved to be attractive.

Comstar posted revenues of US$411.7m (€300m) for the fourth quarter of 2009, up 14% year-on-year in ruble terms. OIBDA was US$164.7m, up 8% year-on-year. The company turned in a profit of US$23m excluding a non-cash adjustment of US$349.4m related to investment in JSC Svyazinvest.