Moscow, Russian Federation – MTS PJSC (NYSE: MBT, MOEX: MTSS), the largest Russian telecommunications operator and digital services provider, announces the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of Avantazh LLC for RUB 8.9 bln (including net debt) from a group of private investors. Avantazh LLC owns the Avantazh data processing center project in Lytkarino, Moscow region, one of the largest data centers in Russia by number of racks.

Andrey Ushatsky, Vice President, Technology and IT, commented, "In recent years, Russian companies choose not to build their own corporate servers and prefer dealing with cloud providers that offer more attractive terms for data processing and storing, while providing a higher level of security and fault tolerance. MTS is actively increasing its presence in the Russian cloud services market through the acquisition and construction of its own data centers. The acquisition and commissioning of the Avantage data center will significantly increase MTS computing power and create a technological base for further B2B services expansion."

The Avantazh data center project is 80% complete. Being a high-tech site with a total capacity of 20 MW, it will provide for the placement of 2,240 racks, using an area totaling 6,400 square meters across 16 halls. Solutions provided by the data center carry a Tier III Uptime Institute Design certificate regarding fault tolerance. MTS will provide colocation and #CloudMTS services based on the data center.

The data center in Lytkarino became the tenth in MTS federal network of data centers located in large Russian cities: three centers in Moscow, two in Nizhny Novgorod, one in Samara, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok and Krasnodar.

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For further information, please contact in Moscow: 
Investor Relations Department 
Mobile TeleSystems PJSC
Tel: +7 495 223 2025 
E-mail: ir@mts.ru