The number of mobile phone accounts has topped Russia's population, experts in the J'son and Partners consultant firm said in a monthly report quoted Saturday by the Kommersant daily.
The number of active SIM-cards reached 143 million in late July, exceeding Russia's registered population of 142.8 million people, experts said, adding however that in reality only 70 percent of Russians were using mobile phones.
"Such a great difference with the number of sold SIM-cards is due to the fact that Russia's largest mobile operators, MTS and Vympelcom, write off their non-active users from the database only once in half a year," analyst Irina Astafyeva of J'son and Partners said.
The difference was particularly glaring in Moscow, whose population of 17 million has 25 million mobile subscriptions - a fact difficult to explain even if one accounted for every client using two or more mobile phones, Astafyeva pointed out.
However, Russian mobile operators were busy cleaning their databases to show better financial results and attract investors, she added.
Earlier this year, the Russian consultant firm ACM, which specialises in statistics in the sector, set the number of mobile phone subscribers in Russia at 125.8 million, according to last year's results.