The mobile network operator Kyivstar has increased its total income by 11.6% in the third quarter of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, to UAH 6.502 billion, the company’s press service said with reference to its quarterly report on Thursday.
According to the report, in the specified period, Kyivstar increased its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by 16.9%, to UAH 4.411 billion, thereby increasing EBITDA margin by 3.1 percentage points (pp), to 67.8%.
Revenue from mobile services of the operator in the third quarter amounted to UAH 6.065 billion, which is 11% higher than in the same period in 2019.
Data traffic consumption increased by 50%, to 5.953 GB per subscriber. Consumption of voice services also increased – by 9.7% to 621 minutes per subscriber.
The number of Kyivstar mobile Internet users grew by 3.4%, to 16.8 million, and the total number of active subscribers by the end of the third quarter amounted to 25.8 million, which is 2.2% less than a year earlier.
The operator explained the decrease in the subscriber base relative to the third quarter of 2019 by the partial suspension of the retail network during quarantine.
According to the company, average revenue per user (ARPU) for mobile communications rose by 14.5%, to UAH 78.
“Forced social distancing during the quarantine period influenced the growth in demand for digital solutions. So, in the third quarter of 2020, the number of users of the My Kyivstar self-service system increased by 52% compared to the third quarter of 2019,” the operator said.
Revenues from fixed-line services grew by 19.9%, to UAH 399 million. At the same time, the number of subscribers increased 10%, to 1.1 million ARPU of fixed-line internet increased 9.7%, to UAH 81.
Capital investments for the reporting period amounted to UAH 1.185 billion, which is 13.5% less than in the same period last year.
In general, in January-September 2020, Kyivstar increased its revenue by 11.4%, to UAH 18.641 billion and EBITDA – by 17.6%, to UAH 12.527 billion, while the EBITDA margin increased by 3.6 pp, to 67.9%.
The operator’s capital investments (excluding license costs) for the first nine months of 2020 grew by 22.7%, to UAH 4.299 billion.
The mobile operators Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine and lifecell, together with Huawei, have launched 4G at 23 more stations of Kyiv metro and in the tunnels between them.
According to the joint press release of the operators, in general, since October 28, the high-speed mobile Internet of three operators has been operating at 45 out of 46 underground stations.
4G will appear at the last Teremky station during December.
The launch of the 4G network in the metro began in March this year from the Akademmistechko station and continued gradually.
“It is interesting that almost 300,000 subscribers of all three operators use 4G Internet every day on average. Together, subscribers of mobile operators have already used more than 400 terabytes of traffic in the metro. This volume would be enough, for example, for a continuous viewing high quality video for 30 years,” the release notes.
For 4G operation in the metro Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine and lifecell use joint equipment from Huawei, but their own frequencies in accordance with licenses. Frequencies are used in two bands: 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz. According to the operators, the average 4G speed in the metro exceeds 40 Mbps.
4G, 4G INTERNET, 4G MOBILE, 4G NETWORK, KYIV METRO, KYIVSTAR, LIFECELL, MOBILE OPERATORS, VODAFONE
The mobile operator Kyivstar launched 4G in 182 villages of Sumy region, in particular, in such villages as Anastasivka, Boromsia, Voloshnivka, Vorozhba, Lytvynovychi, Mala Pavlivka, Mezenivka, Pisky, Krasne, Yunakivka and others.
“More than 46,000 rural residents of the region were able to use mobile Internet of Kyivstar network at high speeds up to 100 Mbps. For this, Kyivstar has equipped 27 base stations with modern technological means of radio communications of the LTE standard,” the company’s press service said on Monday, October 26.
Kyivstar notes that during the entire development of LTE technology in Ukraine, the operator has provided access to high-speed mobile Internet for 84% of the population.
The mobile operator Kyivstar has increased access to 4G communications for 649 villages, in the area with the population of 204,000 people in Mykolaiv, Poltava and Chernihiv regions.
According to the press service of the operator, in particular, new mobile technologies appeared in the villages of Velyka Bohachka, Vovchyk, Sudiyivka (Poltava region), Dobrianka, Kruty, Sosnytsia, Kholmy (Chernihiv region), Blahodatne, Lymany, Trudoliubivka (Mykolaiv region), etc.
It is noted that in order to expand the territory of its 4G network, Kyivstar switched on an additional 76 base stations at LTE-900 frequencies.
To date, Kyivstar has provided access to high-speed mobile Internet for 84% of the population.
The mobile operator Kyivstar has launched the beta testing of the Kyivstar Open Telecom (KOT) project for testing API products based on mock data (have a structure identical to the real one, but are not valid).
“In Kyivstar we have 25.4 million subscribers, 4 million website users per month, 514 stores, 300 terabytes of data per day, and we are trying to become more and more open every day, so we launch the Kyivstar Open Telecom project,” the head of R&D & Digital at the company, Ivan Pasichnyk, said.
The KOT API allows using Kyivstar’s capabilities for developing new products, creating applications and automating business processes with a minimum Time to First Successful API Call indicator.
The company’s website reports work with mock data is free of charge, while the use of API products with real data and a debug server will be paid.
“In the next releases, we will add a sandbox in which you can work with real data: with a limit of five numbers, the ownership of which you confirmed with one-time password, and the number of requests. This format will be useful to test integration with real data,” he said.
The operator emphasizes that now Kyivstar Open Telecom is in a closed beta, so not all functions may be available, at the same time, the functionality of the KOT user account will expand.
As reported, on October 9, Kyivstar announced the launch of the Open Telecom Platform, an online platform for interaction with IT companies, which allow connecting to the operator’s services and using its datasets for developing and testing products.
Kyivstar also plans to transform from a traditional telecoms operator into a digital company.
Kyivstar, the mobile network operator, has announced the launch of the Open Telecom Platform, an online platform for interaction with IT grocery companies, which allows connecting to the operator’s services and using its data sets for product development and testing.
“Tomorrow we will take the first step. We will present a kind of portal of data versions for our potential partners – Open Telecom Platform from Kyivstar. It will give them the opportunity to connect to us, integrate with us and use some of the more popular service options that we are selling right now as a kind of trial version for creating own products, ideas or applications,” Kyivstar President of Alexander Komarov said during the online forum Lviv IT Arena on Friday.
According to him, the available options for using the portal are largely related to the capabilities and data available to Kyivstar as the largest Ukrainian operator.
