Business news from Ukraine

The share of revenue not from the core telecommunications business of Ukraine’s largest telecommunications operator Kyivstar, which will amount to about 20% by the end of this year, is expected to reach 50% in five years thanks to planned investments of $1 billion over the next three years, said Zoya Dronchkevich, Kyivstar’s business development director and member of the supervisory boards of Helsi.me and Uklon.

“In five years, we aim to have around 50% of the group’s revenue coming from non-telecom sources with our investments of around $1 billion over three years. That is our goal,” said Dronchkevich at the Forbes Money forum in Kyiv.

Among the areas of investment for Kyivstar, which this year acquired Uklon and bought out the minority stake in Helsi, she named healthcare, education, fintech, entertainment, and advertising.

“We have a number of interesting organic experiments that could grow into inorganic ones. And we have strategic bets on certain industries that will help us make up the missing percentage to achieve our goal,” added the business development director.

She also emphasized that the most important task is to increase revenue through synergies between these businesses.

“Our strategy is not to tell telecom companies what to do, but to give them access to capital, enable them to leverage synergies from telecom and the ecosystem, create new value, and scale Ukrainian products abroad,” Droshkevich described Kyivstar’s approach to cooperation with partners.

Commenting on the acquisition of up to 100% of Helsi, she said that this is not the last deal in the healthcare sector.

“We will definitely be developing healthcare for several years. And it will be a whole ecosystem in itself. In addition to being part of the larger Kyivstar ecosystem and galaxy,” the director emphasized.

According to her, this involves both the development of B2C areas, where customers will soon see new products in the Helsi app, and investments in B2B. “For example, a few months ago, we approved a separate investment in private clinics and will compete there as well,” said Dronshkevich, also mentioning medical insurance.

She added that the company is also investing in R&D for overseas expansion, and certain elements of the ecosystem will be expanded to the markets of VEON, Kyivstar’s parent company.

“We have already grown the second player in the entertainment market, OTT TV Kyivstar TV, and we will continue to develop this area.

We are definitely very interested in fintech, which fits very organically into the ecosystem. This is far from a simple story,” said the Kyivstar business development director, listing the next areas of focus. She clarified that in fintech, there is a choice between an organic and inorganic scenario.

Droshkevich also mentioned investments in delivery, where, thanks to the acquisition of Uklon, the company already has a few percent of revenue.

“Advertising Tech is also an area of interest for us, where our clients, our data, and the presence of our ecosystem are a competitive advantage for this business. And it will help it generate additional revenue,” the director noted.

According to her, Kyivstar is also interested in B2B SAS solutions and fundamental B2B infrastructure areas. She recalled that the operator has already become the largest Microsoft distributor in Ukraine, and this major strategic partnership will continue to develop.

Droshkevich also acknowledged Kyivstar’s significant interest in the education sector and said that she had already interviewed 17 founders of LMS (Learning Management System) companies in Ukraine.

“I have met with eight different founders over the past month. We have selected the top three, who are in completely different segments. Perhaps we will start with commercial partnerships, perhaps we will start directly with a joint venture, and education is definitely of interest to us,” said the director.

Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, increased its revenue by 49.5% in January-March 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, to UAH 10.72 billion, doubling its investments to UAH 2.42 billion.
According to the financial statements published by the parent company VEON, the operator’s revenue in the first quarter increased by 36.9% in dollar terms, to $257 million.

Kyivstar’s revenue for the first quarter of 2025 grew by 49.5% thanks to an increase in ARPU (average revenue per user), which rose by 53.9% to UAH 140.6.
“These impressive results were achieved thanks to price adjustments, the stability of the 4G base, and the growing adoption of Kyivstar’s digital services, which in turn led to an increase in mobile internet consumption.

The dynamic revenue growth reflects the effective recovery from last year’s cyberattack,” VEON said in a statement.
The bulk of Kyivstar’s revenue in the reporting period came from telecom services, which grew by 47.8% to UAH 10.39 billion. However, revenue from digital services increased 2.4 times to UAH 329 million.

EBITDA increased by 64.2% to UAH 5.95 billion, and EBITDA margin increased by 5 percentage points (pp) to 55.6%. In dollar terms, EBITDA grew by 50.6% to $143 million. EBIT increased by 99% to UAH 4.18 billion, and EBIT margin by 9.8 p.p. to 39.1%.

Kyivstar’s subscriber base decreased by 4.9% to 22 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2025. The 4G subscriber base also decreased by 4.3% to 14.3 million.

“The decrease in the number of 4G users is mainly due to the overall decline in mobile subscribers. This was more than offset by a 21.2% increase in data consumption per user and an increase in the number of roaming subscribers,” VEON said in a statement.

Kyivstar recorded a 21.2% increase in data usage (the amount of gigabytes consumed by users) in January-March, to 11.4 GB. The digital MAU (Monthly Active Users) indicator grew by 32.9% to 10.3 million.

During the same period, the revenue of the Helsi digital platform grew by 41% compared to the same period last year. At the end of the first quarter, the platform had 1.8 million app users, which is 30% more than in the first quarter of last year. The number of medical professionals on the platform also increased by 3% compared to the same period last year. As of the end of March, the number of active doctors on the platform reached 39,000.

Kyivstar TV showed impressive revenue growth of 177%, thanks to a 34.9% increase in subscribers compared to the same period last year. The growth was driven by attractive content offerings, including the exclusive launch of the Setanta Premium sports channel and an updated sports section in the app, VEON said. Ukrainian-language content now accounts for 81% of the platform’s catalog. In addition, the Kyivstar TV app has expanded its reach with the launch on Xbox devices.

Kyivstar’s capital investments in January-March increased by 126% to UAH 2.42 billion and were mainly directed towards strengthening the network’s energy resilience and expanding 4G coverage.