nly 10 percent of Russia's land mass is Europe and 90 percent is in Asia. However, Russia is often thought of as part of Europe because of the lopsided distribution of its population. Russia is actually a Eurasian country because it is in both Asia and Europe. The eastern region, Siberia, and the tundra are sparsely populated. Russia's large size and sparse population in the eastern region makes it costly to build nationwide networks. Due to a variety of factors, Russia's population declined from the early 1990s to 2010. Despite this decline, Russia's economy is improving. This is due in part to Mobile Carriers Worldwide Arctic Circle Belarus Ukraine Moscow Black The Russian Federation Sea of Okhotsk Kazahstan Azerbaijan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Mongolia Japan Kyrgyzstan Sea of Tajikistan Japan China Figure 8-3 The vast expanse of the Russian Federation. revenue from oil exports. Russia has large reserves of oil, and gas as well as minerals in sections of the Barents Sea in the Arctic region. However, weather conditions make production and mining efforts there quite costly. Much of Russia's economy depends on exports of oil and gas, and grain commodities. Thus, when global commodity prices drop, its economy fluctuates widely. Close to 100 percent of Russian citizens have been educated and about 25 per- cent are in the middle class. However, wealth is disproportionately concentrated in the hands of a small portion of the population. In terms of total mobile subscriptions, Russia has a mature mobile market. As of January 2011, there were 220 million mobile subscriptions spread over its 143 million people, but only 3 percent of these were on third-generation (3G) or newer networks. Thus, there is a limited potential for growth in the number of mobile subscribers. Revenue growth will come from the use of smartphones and computers for data ser- vices. However, the aforementioned disparity in wealth distribution has the potential to dampen consumer demand for enhanced mobile services. The largest cell phone companies in