Online social network MySpace Russia has partnered with Russian wireless carrier Mobile TeleSystems OJSC to bring the MySpace brand to MTS Russia's 90.3 million subscribers.

MTS Russia aims to develop and promote more mobile products and services for its subscribers in Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. This deal will let MySpace make inroads into those markets where the leading social networking Web sites are Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte.

"We're getting the know-how from MySpace to provide these mobile services to our customers and they get our customer base, which is the largest in the region," said Arseny Tseytlin, spokesman for MTS, Moscow. "Data has been growing very fast, so we constantly evolve our strategy to provide new data services and social networking is a key area."

Per the deal, an exclusive MySpace Russia service will be added to MTS's mobile Internet page at http://wap.mts.ru in the near future, although no firm date has been set.

In addition, the companies are planning to launch an MTS-branded community on the MySpace Russia Web site to drive usage and support the partnership.

The marketing strategy has not been finalized yet, although the companies will most likely use everything from television and billboard advertising to SMS, below the line and direct marketing campaigns.

MTS has used such platforms in the past. It anticipates that its new relationship with MySpace will help in viral marketing efforts.

"We're constantly engaged in all kinds of marketing communications," Mr. Tseytlin said. "We will utilize all of the available means to reach existing and potential customers."

MTS's marketing strategy is highly focused on segmentation since the company targets specific demographics such as students, women, immigrants, guest workers and business customers. For example, it has partnered with Cosmopolitan magazine's Russian edition to target women.

"While social networking is ubiquitous, obviously MySpace is most popular with the youth, and especially its music platform is a big thing for young people," Mr. Tseytlin said. "MySpace does occupy an important niche, and we're letting our subscribers access it on their mobile phones."

One thing both companies share is the desire to expand their business.

Since its acquisition by News Corp., MySpace has aggressively expanded to various international markets. For its part, MTS earlier this year launched the 3G network in St. Petersburg and three other markets in Russia.

With the MySpace partnership, MTS aims to continue to develop advanced content and data solutions for customers to allow mobile access to communication and information sources, including Web 2.0 and social networking capabilities, previously only available on computers.

"For MySpace, it addresses the big challenge of entering the market in Russia," Mr. Tseytlin said. "From our standpoint, it's a way of making more data communications services available to our subscribers on their mobile devices."