In January-March 2024, lifecell mobile operator’s revenue increased by 16.1% compared to the same period in 2023, to UAH 3.12 billion.
According to the report of the parent company Turkcell, lifecell’s net profit for the first quarter increased by 13% to UAH 582.7 million.
Lifecell’s EBITDA for the period increased by 5.7% to UAH 1.69 billion. At the same time, the EBITDA margin decreased by 5.3 percentage points to 54.4%.
The company’s capital investments in the first quarter increased by 58% to UAH 1.008 billion.
“Three years ago, we developed our medium-term strategy. The name of the strategy was 20-24! It meant 20% market share in 2024! The great lifecell team has done it! The best team in history has increased our market share by 5 percentage points in terms of revenue; from 15.5% to 20.2% for a long time!” Ismet Yazici, CEO of lifecell, commented on the results on Facebook.
He reminded that the company had to work with the challenges of the COVID pandemic, a full-scale war in Ukraine, and unfair regulatory conditions.
Yazidi said that in the first quarter of 2024, lifecell’s subscriber base grew by 12.8%, without specifying the absolute figure.
Turkcell’s report says that the Ukrainian assets of Lifecell LLC, Global Bilgi LLC and Ukrtower LLC, which the Turkish company has owned since July 10, 2015, have been allocated to the disposal group in connection with the agreement to transfer all shares, as well as all rights and debts of these companies to French NJJ. The agreement with the company of French billionaire Xavier Niel was signed on December 29, 2023.
Turkcell CEO Ali Taha Koç, answering investors’ questions at a conference on the first quarter results, said that the deal to sell Ukrainian assets to DVL Telecom, a member of French billionaire Xavier Niel’s NJJ group, would be closed by the end of 2024. According to him, after the Ukrainian court lifted the seizure of some of the assets, the company is awaiting approval from the Antimonopoly Committee, which is the last step to close the deal.
Large language models (LLM), on which ChatGPT and other generative (content-creating) artificial intelligence (AI) tools are based, will never reach the level of human intelligence, believes Jan Lekun, chief scientist of the American Meta in the field of AI.
In his opinion, such models have a very limited understanding of logic and will not be able to reason and plan like a human. In addition, they “do not understand the physical world, do not have permanent memory, are unable to reason in any reasonable sense of the word, and cannot plan … hierarchically,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times.
Lecun argued against relying on LLM development in an effort to create human-level intelligence, as these models can only accurately respond to queries if trained on correct data, and are therefore insecure.
Instead, the expert is developing an entirely new generation of AI systems that he hopes will endow machines with “human” intelligence. However, this task could take a decade to complete, he explained.
Lecun leads a team of about 500 people at Meta’s basic AI research lab. They are working on creating an artificial intelligence that can develop a sense of common sense and study the structure of the world in a similar way to humans. This approach is called “world modeling.”
Import changes in % to previous period in 2023-2024
Source: Open4Business.com.ua and experts.news
The Cabinet of Ministers has identified critical facilities that should be provided with priority power supply during power restrictions.
The initiative was enshrined in Resolution No. 600 of May 24 “On Approval of the Procedure for Determining and Applying Limit Values for Electric Power Consumption,” published on the government portal on Monday.
According to the resolution, these facilities include critical infrastructure facilities of the fuel and energy sector and the life support sector listed in the Register of Critical Infrastructure Facilities. In addition, these are healthcare facilities of state or municipal ownership, military units and territorial centers for manning and social support (including facilities used for the territorial community under martial law), enterprises of the defense sector of Ukraine, including those that perform mobilization tasks (orders) for the creation, production, repair and supply of weapons, ammunition, military equipment, special components, as well as railway transport enterprises.
At the same time, the priority energy supply facilities include enterprises whose activities are important for ensuring the country’s food, economic and/or energy security, enterprises with a continuous production cycle, electronic communication networks, and public authorities (the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers, central executive authorities, law enforcement agencies, namely the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the State Emergency Service).
The lists of critical facilities are approved by the regional and Kyiv city state administrations (military administration) after consultations with local governments, distribution system operators (DSOs) and the State Agency for State Regulation of Energy and Energy Efficiency on the expediency of including the facility in the list, the permissible minimum load levels, the power supply schemes of the specified consumer, the sub-consumers on the same line that need to be disconnected, etc.
It is noted that the DSO is obliged to ensure a fair and uniform order of distribution of the maximum capacity among other consumers not included in this list.
At the same time, when applying the maximum capacity (limits) to them, critical infrastructure facilities must ensure their compliance. In addition, they must disconnect sub-consumers that do not affect their operation, otherwise they may be included in the schedules of hourly outages.
In the event of an emergency in the power system and/or exceeding the maximum capacity, the transmission system operator may decide to additionally apply emergency outage schedules by the DSO.
As reported, at a meeting on May 24, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the procedure for determining the maximum power consumption limits.
It defines the procedure for interaction between the Ministry of Energy, the State Agency for State Energy Supervision, the data transmission system operator (TSO), distribution system operators (DSO), as well as consumers in the process of determining and applying the maximum values of electricity consumption. The Procedure is mandatory for TSOs, DSOs and consumers regardless of their form of ownership.
On May 23 in Kyiv, as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast, the Embassy organized a scientific and practical conference “Manas – Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”.
The diplomatic event was attended by the Minister of Culture of Ukraine R. Karandeev, 13 deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, representatives of the diplomatic corps, political and public figures, Ukrainian scientists in the field of Turkology/philology, representatives of universities in Kiev, representatives of the Kyrgyz diaspora. Also from the Kyrgyz side via videoconference took part the president of the State Institution “National Academy ‘Manas’ T.Bakchiev, the translator of the book – chairman of the Ukrainian Society ‘Bereginya’ in Kyrgyzstan V.Narozia and artist Z.Ilipov.
The conference was held in Kyrgyz-Ukrainian-English and discussed the influence of Manas on world culture. The participants were shown a video “Manas”, and there was also a presentation of Sayakbai Karalaev’s book “Kyrgyz Folk Epic Yer-Toshtyuk”, recently published in Ukrainian, which was published with funds from Ukrainian sponsors. The new book was presented to each conference participant as a gift.
Speakers discussed the influence of Kyrgyz culture on world literature and noted the importance of such an event for deepening Kyrgyz-Ukrainian cultural and humanitarian cooperation.
The diplomatic event was held at a high level and received a positive response from the participants.
The new books will be donated to universities and libraries in Ukraine.
The Kyrgyz Republic recognized the independence of Ukraine on December 20, 1991. On September 19, 1992 diplomatic relations were established. In 1993 the Embassy of the Kyrgyz Republic was opened in Kiev, and in 2000 the Embassy of Ukraine in Kyrgyzstan.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Portugal on Tuesday, May 28, according to the website of the President of Portugal.
It is noted that Zelensky will visit Portugal at the invitation of its President Marcelo Rebelo de Souza and Prime Minister Luiz Montenegro.
“President Zelenskyy’s working visit is part of a common intention to deepen relations between the two countries, with a particular focus on strengthening security and defense cooperation. It will also provide an opportunity to reaffirm Portugal’s commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as to maintaining political, military, financial and humanitarian support for Kyiv,” the statement said.
It is reported that the President of Ukraine will hold working meetings with Prime Minister Luiz Montenegro and President Marcelo Rebelo de Souza.
