Kyivstar increases income by 12.4%, EBITDA by 15.6% in 2020
The net income of Kyivstar over 2020 amounted to UAH 25.158 billion, which is 12.4% more than in 2018.
According to the company, the operator’s income from mobile services grew by 12%, to UAH 23.418 billion, and from fixed-line services by 18.7%, to UAH 1.602 billion.
In addition, EBITDA last year increased by 15.6% and amounted to UAH 16.979 billion, while EBITDA margin increased by 1.9 percentage points to 67.5%.
Capex (excluding licenses and leases) for the year increased by 22.1% and amounted to UAH 4.851 billion.
Kyivstar’s total mobile customer base in the fourth quarter of 2020 decreased by 1.3% compared to the same period in 2019, to 25.9 million, while the number of fixed-line subscribers increased by 10.9%, to 1.1 million.
“Kyivstar’s total mobile customer base showed a y-o-y decline of 1.3%, to 25.9 million users due to the decline of second SIM cards in the market and lower gross additions during lockdown when the strict measures resulted in the partial closure of Kyivstar stores,” the company said.
According to Kyivstar, in the fourth quarter of 2020 the number of mobile Internet users reached 17.1 million, which is 1.3% more than in the fourth quarter of 2019. At the same time, the number of subscribers using 4G Internet increased by 30% over the year. The growth in the 4G users and the associated increase in data usage contributed to an ARPU increase of 16,9%, to UAH 80 y-o-y.
Users in 2020 increased the usage of mobile Internet and voice services. Thus, in the fourth quarter of 2020, the average consumption of data traffic per subscriber was 6.1 GB, which is 43% more than a year earlier.
Usage of voice traffic per subscriber for the specified period amounted to 651 minutes, or 12.7% more than in the same period last year.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, the operator’s income increased by 15.2%, to UAH 6.697 billion. Of these, UAH 6.229 billion accounted for income from mobile services (more by 15%), and UAH 430 million for income from fixed-line services (more by 21.3%). EBITDA during this period increased by 10.4%, to UAH 4.452 billion, the margin decreased by 2.8 percentage points, to 66.5%.
Capital investments in the fourth quarter of 2020 amounted to UAH 1.251 billion, which is 25.9% more than in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Over the past year, Kyivstar transferred taxes and other payments to the state budget for a total of UAH 9.3 billion.
In addition, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kyivstar has provided assistance to society and subscribers for UAH 80 million – free communication services, benefits for health workers, the purchase of ventilators for a number of medical institutions, and much more.
The mobile operator Kyivstar has analyzed the popularity of messengers, social networks and platforms among Ukrainians.
According to the company’s report, the study used generalized and anonymized data on mobile data traffic in the operator’s network.
According to the operator, Viber is the most popular messenger among Kyivstar subscribers – 12 million subscribers of the operator use it monthly. Next in the ranking are Facebook Messenger with 11 million users, Telegram with 6 million and WhatsApp with about 5 million.
“The most popular social platforms are Facebook and YouTube, they are monthly used by about 13 million Kyivstar subscribers. Instagram is used by 10 million people. Unexpectedly, Twitter ranks third with 7 million, and TikTok closes the list of leaders with 5.5 million,” Kyivstar said.
According to the report, on average, the operator’s subscribers spend the most time on TikTok – 88 minutes a day. And every tenth user spends more than 4 hours a day in this application.
YouTube is watched an average of 54 minutes a day, and 44 minutes is spent on Facebook.
Kyivstar subscribers actively use social networks in the evening, from 18:00 to 22:00, as well as in the afternoon, from 12:00 to 13:00.
Expectedly, the largest amount of mobile Internet per month is used when watching YouTube – an average of 2.5 GB per subscriber, TikTok ranks second place with 0.6 GB, and Instagram – 0.4 GB.
During the New Year holidays, over 300,000 Ukrainians, who are subscribers of the mobile network operator Kyivstar traveled across Ukraine and abroad.
Thus, the top ten cities of Ukraine, where Kyivstar subscribers most actively traveled during the New Year holidays, included: Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, and Rivne. Tourist mobility peaked on December 28, 2020 and January 3, 2021.
The three most popular ski resorts in Ukraine among the operator’s subscribers were Bukovel, Slavske, and Dragobrat. The tourist peak of mobility of Ukrainians who went to ski resorts fell on December 31, 2020, January 1, January 2, January 8 and January 9, 2021.
According to the company, the majority of Ukrainians went abroad to Egypt, Turkey, Poland, Moldova and Romania. At the same time, in 2019, Kyivstar subscribers preferred Poland, Egypt, Moldova, the Czech Republic and Germany.
In addition, according to the data provided, in 2020, new directions appeared among the countries that were visited by Kyivstar subscribers on New Year’s holidays, such as the Maldives, Dominican Republic, Bulgaria, and Tanzania.
The company said that the number of tourists who traveled abroad in 2020 fell by 81% compared to 2019.
“Big Data remains a strategic business direction in Kyivstar. Its potential is huge, because analytics helps in the development of various smart ecosystems, including urban ones in terms of tourism potential or infrastructure improvement. And Kyivstar has everything necessary resources for developing the sector: data, technical equipment, a team of analysts and data scientists, innovative technologies and opportunities,” the press service of Kyivstar said, quoting New Business Director at Kyivstar Ilya Polshakov.
The operator said that the mobility data for subscriber groups was analyzed from December 24, 2020 to January 10, 2021.
When determining a trip within Ukraine, only one settlement was taken into account, in which the subscriber spent more time, but no less than two days. When determining a foreign trip, only one country was taken into account in which the subscriber spent the most time.
Mobile network operator Kyivstar handed over 55 Biomed JAY-10 oxygen concentrators to 12 hospitals in Kyiv city, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia, Poltava, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Khmelnytsky regions, the operator said on Thursday. “Big business is helping society to overcome the coronavirus pandemic. I am glad that we continue providing the necessary equipment to combat the pandemic,” the press service said, citing President of Kyivstar Alexander Komarov as saying.
He also recalled that in 2020, Kyivstar donated 10 Savina 300 Select ventilation and respiratory monitoring devices with consumables for them, 20 Vista 120 patient monitors and 6,851 reusable protective suits for medical workers from 30 referral hospitals.
The project is being implemented in partnership with the Tvoya Opora Charitable Foundation, which monitored medical institutions that receive patients with coronavirus.
According to the report, the charitable organizations with which Kyivstar cooperates have undergone thorough international checks by the VEON parent group regarding the ethics of their business.
As reported, during the quarantine, Kyivstar provided assistance with bonuses to the accounts of almost 70,000 doctors, and for three summer months they were given access to unlimited Internet. The total amount of support provided by the operator totaled approximately UAH 80 million.
Ookla (the United States), the developer of Speedtest service, has recognized Vodafone Ukraine as the mobile network operator with the highest average mobile Internet speed in Ukraine in July-December 2020.
Such data were released during an online conference on Thursday.
“Now we have already recorded almost 5 million Ukrainians who have tested Internet services on this platform. This is an extraordinary figure in scale. Today we are here to welcome the fastest mobile Internet in Ukraine – Vodafone Ukraine,” the sales director at Ookla said during the conference.
According to him, in Q3-Q4 2020, Vodafone Ukraine reached the Speed Score of 30.85 (in 2019 it was 17.93). The average download speed was 29.38 Mbps, upload – 14.1 Mbps (in 2019 it was 19.37 Mbps and 11.16 Mbps, respectively).
He also said that in 2020, Ukraine climbed one position in the global ranking in terms of Internet connection speed, being 86th.
Ookla is a leader in fixed and mobile internet speed testing and analysis. According to the company, users run more than 10 million tests on the application every day.
Mobile network operator Kyivstar has expanded its 4G network coverage in Volyn and Zhytomyr regions and connected 402 more settlements to new mobile technologies.
The press service of the company said on Thursday that in particular, in Zhytomyr region, high-speed mobile Internet appeared in the settlements of Andriyivka, Bilkivtsi, Zamyslovychi, Kalynivka, Korostyshiv, Lebedivka, Nemyrivka and in Volyn region in the settlements of Borokhiv, Volodymyr-Volynsky, Horodysche, Domanove, Liubeshiv, and Ruzhyn.
The operator said that in order to improve coverage, LTE900 technology was activated at 98 base stations.
According to the data provided, a total of 14,000 base stations of the operator support 4G communication, which makes it possible to access new mobile technologies for 87% of the population of Ukraine.
At the same time, the operator said that in 2021 it intends to continue developing the network to increase the population’s access to 4G up to 90%.
