MOSCOW, February 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's mobile phone penetration in January went up 60% year-on-year to 128.175 million subscriptions against 78.260 million in 2005, a research company said Thursday.

ACM Consulting said penetration in January reached 88.3%, up from 53.9% in January 2005.

The number of subscriptions does not exactly reflect the number of cell phone users because some people may have multiple active SIM cards. In some European regions, mobile phone penetration exceeds 100%.

According to ACM, the leading mobile operators in Russia are MTS and Megafon.