Russian telecommunications firm VimpelCom plans to provide free access to Wikipedia for its subscribers in Africa and Asia.

The free service, dubbed Wikipedia Zero, is intended to be the first initiative in a series of developments targeted at including other Wikimedia services for emerging markets as well.

“Through Wikipedia Zero, VimpelCom's mobile customers will have free access to the mobile version of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, along with a lightweight, text-only fast version of the site,” said the two firms in a joint statement.

VimpelCom is one of the world's largest integrated telecommunications companies. In Africa, the company has operations in countries such as Algeria, Burundi, Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic.

By the end of September last year, VimpelCom, which has a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, had 212 million mobile subscribers across all its operations.

Mikhail Gerchuk, the group chief commercial and strategy officer at VimpelCom, said the two companies had partnered “to offer our customers a better mobile experience and greater access to free knowledge, particularly in emerging markets”.

He added that the partnership and free access to Wikipedia Zero could help enhance “free access” to world knowledge.

"We're very happy VimpelCom is joining us in removing a major barrier to accessing Wikipedia on mobile phones," said Kul Takanao Wadhwa, the head of Wikimedia Foundation’s mobile division.

It is expected that with this partnership, Wikipedia Zero, could be “available to 330 million mobile users” around the world.

VimpelCom has previously announced a partnership with Opera Mini to provide a mobile web browser optimised for basic phones.