Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, has acquired the regional internet provider Shtorm LLC (Shtorm) in the Kirovohrad region, which serves over 50,000 subscribers, for 420 million UAH, announced Kyivstar CEO and President Oleksandr Komarov.
“This acquisition brings over 50,000 new broadband customers in 130 municipalities into the Kyivstar ecosystem, supporting our strategy to expand our broadband network,” he said during a conference call regarding the company’s annual report on Friday.
“In the fixed broadband market, we aim to strengthen the group’s leadership through organic growth and acquisitions,” Komarov emphasized regarding the company’s future development strategy.
He noted that cross-selling and synergies are at the core of Kyivstar’s digital growth strategy. According to him, for example, in the fourth quarter, the share of broadband customers subscribed to Kyivstar TV grew by more than 3 percentage points (pp) to 48%.
“We attribute this growth to effective marketing and the increasing appeal of our content library, including programs unavailable elsewhere in Ukraine,” Komarov noted.
He noted that the number of multi-service customers (including customers who use at least one digital application in addition to voice and data services) grew by 18% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2025, reaching 7.3 million, or 35% of the active customer base in a single month, which is nearly 6 percentage points higher than a year earlier.
“The multi-service segment is driving growth thanks to stronger customer engagement, higher data consumption, and improved customer retention. They (such customers) also generate a higher ARPU—$5.20 per month for our services, which is 37% higher than the average for a mobile customer,” noted the company’s president.
Kyivstar announced the acquisition of Shtorm in late February. At the time, it was noted that this provider offers coverage in the Kirovohrad region, covering the cities of Kropyvnytskyi, Oleksandriia, and 132 surrounding settlements. The press release did not include information on the purchase price of the provider.
According to data from YouControl, the revenue of Isp Storm LLC for the first nine months of 2025 increased 4.7-fold compared to the first nine months of 2024—to 94.86 million UAH—while net profit jumped 17-fold—to 30.39 million UAH.
The beneficiaries of the company, which has a registered capital of 4.5 million UAH, were Vitaliy Oliynyk and Yulia Makarenko on an equal basis.
Kyivstar emphasized that the deal preserves the provider’s workforce of more than 100 employees, including engineers, designers, and customer service specialists, who will continue to be responsible for network maintenance and subscriber support in the region.
In August of last year, Kyivstar first announced the $2 million acquisition in September 2024 of LanTrace (Boryspil)—a regional provider of fixed broadband internet access in the Kyiv region.
As reported, Kyivstar served 22.4 million mobile subscribers and 1.2 million “Home Internet” subscribers as of the end of 2025. In 2025, the company increased its EBITDA by 30% to 27 billion UAH, with revenue growing by 30.3% to 48.2 billion UAH; including in the fourth quarter of last year, when EBITDA increased by 23.1% to UAH 7.2 billion, with revenue growing by 30.1% to UAH 13.5 billion.
