Russian mobile firm MegaFon posts 4% profit rise in 1H09

MOSCOW, September 7 (RIA Novosti) - MegaFon, Russia's third largest mobile operator, said on Monday its U.S. GAAP net profit grew 4% year-on-year in January-June 2009 to 20.1 billion rubles ($638 million).

MegaFon, which was established in 2002, said its revenues in the reporting period increased 7.3% to 86.1 billion rubles ($2.7 billion), and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 5.3% to 41.58 billion rubles ($1.3 billion).

"By the end of the current period we managed to reverse the negative trends which were evident at the beginning of this year," MegaFon said in a statement.

MegaFon had 45.8 million subscribers in Russia in at the end of June 2009.