The VEON international telecom group has appointed Alexander Komarov President of Kyivstar, the leading Ukrainian mobile communications operator.
Komarov in July 2018 was appointed acting President of Kyivstar and replaced Peter Chernyshov. He also runs the post of CEO of Beeline Kazakhstan.
“In Ukraine, Kyivstar is a national success story and I am convinced that with Alexander [Komarov] at the helm the company will continue to be the leading provider of connectivity and internet services in Ukraine,” VEON reported on Thursday, citing VEON’s Executive Chairperson Ursula Burns.
Komarov, born in 1972, graduated from the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, began his career in 1994 at the Kyiv Research Center of the Military Institute of Management and Communications, from 1997 to 2002 worked for Globalstar in marketing and sales. In 2002, he was invited to the post of business development director at Adell Saatchi & Saatchi (Video International Kyiv), in 2004 he became CEO of this advertising agency, and later headed the Video International in Ukraine, a group of companies.
In 2007-2013, Komarov was CEO of a large Ukrainian marketing company GroupM. In July 2013, he received an invitation from Kazakhstan from Beeline and was appointed Chief Commercial Officer, and in January 2016 he headed the company.
Kyivstar is the largest Ukrainian mobile communications operator. According to latest data, its subscribers’ base is around 26.6 million.
VEON international group (earlier VimpelCom) is the shareholder in Kyivstar. The group’s shares are listed on NASDAQ (New York).
The Kyivstar mobile communications operator has launched the family tariff for contract subscribers with a possibility of connecting up to four numbers to one account for UAH 75 a month. The press service of the company reported on Wednesday that under the terms of the tariff, in addition to unlimited calls in the Kyivstar network, subscribers will receive 50 minutes for calls to other networks in Ukraine, as well as to Italy, Poland and Russia, 5,000 MB of Internet and free use of the Kyivstar Go TV application.
The connection is available for Kyivstar subscribers who use the services of the operator for at least three months, if they visited the company’s branch with a passport.
Connection is possible only to an existing personal account, where a number/ numbers with Kyivstar 4G, Kyivstar 4G Extra, Kyivstar 4G Ultra, Kyivstar 4G Business, Kyivstar 4G Business VIP, Kyivstar 4G Extra + and Kyivstar 4G Business Premium are already registered, while one personal account can have no more than four numbers from Kyivstar Family registered.
At the same time, the company said in the press release that if at least one of the conditions for using the tariff is not met, the subscription fee at the Kyivstar Family tariff will be UAH 150 a month.
The Kyivstar mobile communications operator increased the number of М2М Sim cards (machine-to-machine) by 23% in July 2018 compared with July 2017, to 1.4 million.
The operator reported on its website that among leaders that used М2М Sim cards are security, finance, retail, energy spheres and agriculture, and one of the growth factors is development of the Internet of Things (IoT).
According to the operator, corporate clients have 92% of M2M cards: initially the technology was developed to automate business processes.
In a year, the number of М2М Sim cards among individuals grew by 78%.
“Our customers more often use smart devices with M2M SIM cards installed in them. Kyivstar has joined the projects with a large network player who not only works with a variety of different sensors, but can also ensure their reliable operation by creating an ecosystem for associations of M2M-cards and sensors,” Kyivstar director for business development in the corporate market Yevhen Krazhan said.
The company said that the largest share of M2M SIM cards Kyivstar (37%) is used for security systems of houses, offices, cars and other property.
M2M cards are used to automatically transfer data from a device to another device.
The mobile communications operator Kyivstar in April-June 2018 saw an 11.4% rise in revenue year-over-year, to UAH 4.521 billion, the Veon international group (VimpelCom Ltd. before rebranding) has said in a quarterly report on Thursday. According to the report, over the period Kyivstar increased earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by 8%, to UAH 2.49 billion, EBITDA margin fell by 1.7 percentage points (p.p.), to 55.1%. Revenue from mobile communications services in Q2 2018 came to UAH 4.2 billion, which is 11.4% more than a year ago.
The press service of Kyivstar reported that data consumption in April-June 2018 grew by 139% year-over-year, to 1.8 gigabytes per user on average. Voice service consumption remained stable: in Q2 2018 on average 580 minutes per user was recorded, which is 1.2% more than a year ago. The number of mobile Internet users over the period grew by 21% year-over-year, to 13.5 million, and the total number of active users totaled 26.5 million, which is 400,000 more than a year ago.
“The growth in the consumption of services, the increase in the number of users, the launch of new communication technologies are just a few qualitative changes that have positively affected our financial performance in the second quarter of 2018,” acting Kyivstar president Oleksandr Komarov said in a report. The minutes of use (MoU) increased by 1.2%, to 580 minutes, and ARPU (average revenue per user per month) of mobile communication increased by 9.6%, to UAH 52.
The revenues of the mobile operator from fixed-line services in the second quarter increased by 7.3% to UAH 297 million, including revenues from fixed-line Internet that increased by 8.5% to UAH 185 million, while the number of users increased by 6.5% %, to 0.858 million. ARPU for fixed-line Internet grew by 4.3%, to UAH 72.
Capital investments, with the exception of payment for licenses, for the reporting period amounted to UAH 927 million, which is 31.5% more than in the same period last year. At the end of the second quarter of 2018, the “3G Kyivstar” service was available in the territory where 74% of Ukrainians live. Kyivstar said that in the first half of the year its revenues increased by 10.8% compared to the same period in 2017, to UAH 8.785 billion, while EBITDA increased by 12%, to UAH 4.902 billion.
At the same time, revenues from mobile services for six months increased by 11.2% to UAH 8.149 billion, and from fixed-line telephony – by 3.6%, to UAH 593 million.
In the second quarter of 2018, Kyivstar transferred almost UAH 4 billion of taxes, fees and payments for licenses to the Ukrainian budget, and for the first half of the year the amount of all payments to the national budget reached UAH 6.8 billion. Kyivstar is the largest Ukrainian mobile communications operator.
The Kyivstar mobile communications operator from July 1, 2018 launched 4G (LTE) mobile Internet in the 1800 MHz band in Kyiv, and then with intervals of two days it will be launched in Odesa, Lviv and other regions, Kyivstar President Peter Chernyshov told reporters at a meeting in Lviv.
“Starting July 1, we are launching 4G in the 1800 MHz band. These are additional frequencies that will make broad coverage. Our competitors want to announce in a beautiful way that they are launching immediately and everywhere. We have another strategy: we want everything to work well. There are a lot of towers in Kyiv, and we want us to have two days to check how it works, and if everything works well, then on July 3 we start in Odesa and the resorts, and on July 5 – in Lviv and the suburbs,” he said.
Chernyshov also said that in the event that something will not work perfectly – the company plans to postpone the dates of subsequent launches until troubleshooting is finished.
At the same time, the operator’s president said that Kyivstar does not have any problems with the General Staff of the Armed Forces or receiving approved documents.
As reported, lifecell on July 1 will launch 4.5G (LTE Advanced Pro) mobile Internet in the 1800 MHz band in 232 cities and towns in Ukraine.
The Kyivstar mobile operator plans to launch an application for own Smart Money financial service within one month, Head of the mobile financial services department of the operator Taras Horkun has said. “We originally designed our financial services in a way that we could cover those cities and towns where the bank network is poorly represented. We have the opportunity of creating financial services that can be managed via SMS messages not only from smartphones, but also from button phones,” he told journalists at a meeting in Lviv on June 29.
According to Horkun, now the service is undergoing the latest testing, and if the testing is successful at all stages – within a month the application should appear in the markets.
He said that Smart Money from Kyivstar is not a competitor of the banking system, since the application includes services that the operator launches together with banks, in particular, Ukrgasbank and Pravex-Bank, and there are certain segments that are represented by other banks.
“We are open and we cooperate with different payment systems and various banks. Our electronic money is the money of the Prostir system of the National Bank. We consider ourselves as part of building a national program for establishing Cashless Economy in Ukraine,” Horkun said.
