Telefonica has struck an agreement with MegaFon under which Russia’s second largest mobile operator will join the operator-group’s Partners Programme, with the promise of economies of scale benefits and enhanced services.

Joining the programme means MegaFon will jointly procure equipment with its larger partner, so lowering costs, as well as benefiting from Telefonica’s technical expertise. In addition, the larger operator will provide services to MegaFon’s corporate customers who can access the same services when abroad.

The Russian operator is a major player in its own right with 63 million subscribers, according to Wireless Intelligence (Q1, 2013 figures). It joins other significant operators already members of the partner programme, including China Unicom and Telecom Italia, both operators in which Telefonica holds equity stakes.

Etisalat, which is active in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and France’s Bouygues Telecom are also members of  the programme, although neither have Telefonica as a shareholder. Both Etisalat and Bouygues joined the partners programme in July 2011.

In the future, Telefonica and MegaFon may work together in markets such as OTT, cloud services and M2M.

According to Ivan Tavrin (pictured), MegaFon’s CEO: “Joining Telefónica’s Partners Programme is in line with MegaFon’s long term strategy focused on efficient growth, mobile Internet service development and enhancement of the customer experience.

This Agreement enables us to work with the best  international professionals  to use their experience in improving quality of services, customer relationship management and in new product development”.