The largest Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar in the first quarter of 2023 increased its hryvnia revenue by 6% (in dollars it decreased by 17.2%) compared to the same period in 2022, to UAH 8.346 billion, according to a report by the parent company VEON.
According to it, during the reporting period, Kyivstar increased its EBITDA by 1% in hryvnia (in dollars, the figure decreased by 21.2%) compared to the same period last year – up to UAH 4.921 billion, and its EBITDA margin decreased by 2.9 percentage points (p.p.) – to 59%.
The company clarified that revenues from mobile services increased by 6.7%, to UAH 7.830 billion.
In addition, the operator noted that in the first quarter of 2023, the consumption of minutes per subscriber (MoU) decreased by 11.7%, to 551 from 624 in the same period last year. At the same time, the use of mobile Internet over the same period increased by 23.4% – up to 9.5 gigabytes per subscriber, while the average revenue per user (ARPU) increased by 13.3% – up to UAH 106.
The subscriber base in the first quarter of 2023 amounted to 24.3 million, 6.7% less than a year earlier, at the same time, the number of 4G users increased by 4.2%, or 600,000, to 13.3 million in a year, and now 4G penetration in the subscriber base is 54.6%.
As for the Kyivstar fixed network, its revenues decreased by 4.2%, to UAH 463 million, and the number of users by 7%, to 1.1 million.
At the same time, the company noted a 27.7% increase, to 1 million, in the number of users of Kyivstar TV’s streaming business and the recent launch of the Children’s Profile in it.
According to the report, Kyivstar’s capital expenditures increased by 18.4% over the reporting period, to UAH 780 million.
According to the company, Kyivstar’s capital expenditures were aimed at maintaining the main networks in the country, as well as the sustainability of the business. The Kyivstar team was able to keep almost 90% of the radio network as of the end of March 2023.
During the quarter, 81 settlements were connected to the 4G network, 215 new base stations were added and another 460 were converted to 4G.
In the first quarter of this year, VEON did not record significant impairment losses related to operations in Ukraine and no impairment losses related to operations in Russia.
Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, has extended for three years the terms of office of all seven members of its supervisory board, including former Naftogaz-Ukraine CEO Andriy Kobolyev, who is currently defending in court his legitimacy in receiving a large bonus from Naftogaz in a dispute with NABU and SAP.
According to the company’s statement on Wednesday, the relevant decision was approved by the shareholders’ meeting on April 28.
According to it, all members of the supervisory board are representatives of the company’s shareholder, VEON Holdings B.V.
In particular, the powers of Gennadiy Gazin, who chaired the Supervisory Board, as well as Dmytro Shymkiv, Mukhterem Kaan Terzioglu, Serkan Okandan, Matthew Paul Marie Galvani and Karen Marie Linehan were extended for three years.
“Kyivstar is the largest Ukrainian telecommunications operator. It provides communication and data transmission services based on a wide range of mobile and fixed technologies, including 4G.
Kyivstar’s shareholder is the international group VEON (formerly VimpelCom Ltd.). The group’s shares are listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange (New York).
Kyivstar and lifecell have launched new security solutions for their customers: “Kyivstar, in cooperation with Fortinet, a network security company specializing in devices, announced new cyber security solutions, while lifecell announced access to the DefensX browser with enhanced cybersecurity and credential protection to protect Internet users from online threats.
According to Kyivstar’s release, Fortinet solutions will be available in different versions: from physical hardware to specialized virtual machines. In particular, they will be available on a subscription basis.
It is also claimed that customized services to counter cyber threats can be offered, taking into account the needs of companies, with support at all stages of implementation and use.
“The peculiarity of the DefensX browser is that all web pages accessed by the user are opened in the cloud, i.e. remotely from the device traffic and the user’s endpoint, which ensures reliable blocking of malicious code fragments and potential threats,” lifecell explained the essence of its offer.
The company added that the browser’s features also include the ability to block ads and phishing warnings.
DefensX was developed by lifecell’s partner Secure Industries, Inc. The product was available as part of a comprehensive corporate solution for the partner’s B2B customers.
As reported, during the year of full-scale war, Kyivstar’s cybersecurity department successfully blocked more than 450 DDoS attacks on the network and more than 13 thousand phishing attacks.
Earlier, in 2021, Kyivstar business customers already have access to the AntiDDoS service to protect against DDoS attacks (a solution based on FortiDDoS from Fortinet).
Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, will build 170 and upgrade more than 1,000 base stations in the first quarter of 2023, this work is largely due to significant migration to cities and villages in the west of the country, company president Alexander Komarov said in Facebook on Tuesday.
“The level of availability of the network “Kyivstar” in the free territory of Ukraine is more than 99%. This corresponds to the level until February 24, 2022. Nevertheless, there are difficulties in maintaining this quality of communication, the solution of which we are actively working on, “- said the head of the company.
According to him, from time to time the company has difficulties with maintaining an appropriate level of network availability because of bad weather and related warning blackouts, and sometimes the difficulties are caused by security issues, irresponsible attitude of landlords and problems getting access to the network.
Komarov pointed out that Kyivstar does not reduce the rate of battery replacement and connection of new generators, bringing the total number of the latter to about 1,900, as the threat of blackouts remains, and the current improved situation with power supply is a seasonal phenomenon associated with the successful actions of the air defense and a surplus in generation.
The head of the company also said that in the Kharkiv and decouped territories of the Kherson region, grid restoration work is in its final stage.
As reported, in 2022 Kyivstar built 659 new base stations, which roughly corresponds to the level of 2021. In total, the company has about 14 thousand base stations and other network facilities.
Komarov said at Business Wisdom Summit on March 15 that Kyivstar installed 1,790 generators, of which 700 were provided by the business on crowdfunding terms. Their total capacity reached 40 MW.
Ukraine’s largest mobile operator Kyivstar has joined the National Bank of Ukraine’s (NBU) BankID electronic remote identification system for individuals, the bank’s press service said on Friday.
“Another large mobile operator, Kyivstar, has joined the NBU’s BankID system. Now, using BankID NBU system, Kyivstar prepaid subscribers in mobile application “My Kyivstar” will be able to pass identification for switching to a contract form of service,” – explains the report.
Switching to contract form of service or mobile number registration is the most effective protection of subscriber’s SIM-card from fraud, the NBU pointed out.
Now NBU BankID System is used by all three major mobile operators in Ukraine: in April 2021 Lifecell Ukraine and in April 2022 Vodafone Ukraine joined to it.
As reported, BankID NBU provides access to services of more than 40 state and public institutions, allows users to be verified remotely to gain remote access to financial, administrative and commercial services.
As of April 14, 2022 the BankID NBU System had 40 BankIDs, including PrivatBank, Ukrgasbank, Ukrsibbank, Ukreximbank, Alliance Bank, Forward Bank, PUMB, Oschadbank, Alfa-Bank, OTP Bank, Accordbank, Globus Bank, Piraeus Bank, Pravex Bank, Raiffeisen Bank Aval, TAScombank, Kristallbank (all – Kyiv), Motor Bank (Zaporizhia), Vostok, Radabank, Concord Bank, A-Bank (all – Dnipro), Credobank, Idea Bank, Lviv Bank (all – Lviv), Pivdenny Bank (Odessa), MTB Bank (Odessa obl. ), Asvio Bank (Chernihiv), as well as virtual monobank and izibank.
Additional expenses of the largest Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar on ensuring its energy independence amid the problems with external energy supply exceeded UAH 350 mln and the company has replaced more than 20 thousand batteries at base stations to extend their autonomous operation up to four to six hours.
Alexander Komarov, the President of the Company, informed at Business Wisdom Summit held this week that the batteries have been already replaced at 2 ths sites (base stations and other facilities) out of 14 ths and by May-June it will be up to 5 ths but the company goes to the Board of Directors with the proposal to expand this program by 4 ths more.
Earlier the president of the company noted that consumption of one base station is 6-7 kWh. New modern lithium-phosphate batteries allow not only to keep voltage longer but also to recharge faster.
He added that Kyivstar also installed 1,790 generators, of which 700 were provided by businesses on crowdfunding terms. Their total capacity reached 40 MW.
Komarov specified that since November the company uses on average about 10 thousand liters of fuel per day, and the total consumption has already made about 1 million liters.
According to him, to cope with the problems of outages also helps national roaming: in the peak day on November 23 Kyivstar took 1 million subscribers of other operators, while 1,3 million subscribers of Kyivstar used networks of competitors. In total, during the operation of national roaming since March 7, 2022 subscribers of other networks spoke in Kyivstar network 1.2 billion minutes.
In addition, the company also invested UAH 50 million in uninterruptible power supplies for “Home Internet” services: more than 10 thousand homes were equipped with uninterruptible power supplies, which guarantees them the availability of the Internet, even in cases of new blackouts.
Komarov specified that the total investment in the development of telcom-services in the past year amounted to 5.9 billion UAH, 659 new base stations were built, which corresponds to the level of 2021.
He reminded that during the war 18% of base stations of the company were completely destroyed, 20% were damaged and more than 1200 km of fiber-optic lines were damaged as well.
According to him, the company now has 24.8 million subscribers, of which 3.3 million are internally displaced. Komarov specified that 2.2 million subscribers went abroad, 1.4 million of them remained the company’s subscribers, including 95 % that use the service “roaming as home”, provided in 27 countries.
The president of “Kyivstar” noted that at the beginning of the war there were 10 million subscribers of the company outside their places of residence.
“The industry and Kyivstar have done very decently: the network indicators are very close to the pre-war period, the energy industry has stabilized, and the network has stabilized,” Komarov summarized.
