Kyivstar Group Stock price
Compare with Peer Group
📊 Peer Group
📈 What is it?
The peer group consists of the companies with the most similar business model. They serve as a benchmark for putting a stock into context.
🧮 How is it selected?
Based on similarity of business model, meaning companies from the same industry with comparable products and a similar customer base. That's the only way to compare apples to apples.
🏛️ Why does it matter?
Whether a stock is cheap or expensive is best judged by comparison. A P/E of 18 or an EV/FCF of 20 can look cheap or expensive depending on the yardstick. The peer group gives you the most accurate one: companies with a similar business model that operate under the same conditions.
🎯 What does it mean for investors?
When a metric sits below the peer average, the stock is valued more cheaply relative to its competitors, and above the average more expensively. A discount to the peer group can be an opportunity, but it can also have a reason (for example lower growth). The comparison is a starting point, not a verdict.
Is Kyivstar Group a Top Scorer Stock based on the Dividend, High-Growth-Investing or Leverman Strategy?
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Key metrics
📘 Market Capitalization
📈 What is it?
Market capitalization shows how much a company is currently worth on the stock market.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps classify companies by size (Large, Mid, Small Cap) and indicates their market presence and relative stability.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Large-cap companies tend to be more stable, often pay dividends, but may grow more slowly.
- Smaller firms may offer higher growth potential but come with more volatility.
- Market capitalization is a useful indicator of company size — but not a measure of whether a stock is undervalued or overvalued.
📘 Enterprise Value (EV)
📈 What is it?
Enterprise Value represents the total cost to acquire a company — including its debt and excluding its cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
(= Market Cap + Net Debt)
🏛️ Why is it important?
EV gives a more complete picture of a company's value than market cap alone and is used in key valuation ratios like EV/FCF or EV/Sales.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Enterprise Value shows the true cost of buying a company, including all financial obligations.
- It is more accurate than just looking at market cap, especially when comparing companies with different levels of debt or cash.
- Professional investors prefer EV-based multiples because they better reflect the company’s full financial footprint.
📘 Net Debt
📈 What is it?
Net Debt shows how much debt remains after subtracting a company’s available cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It indicates how dependent a company is on borrowed money and how easily it can service its debt in the short term.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low or negative net debt signals financial strength and flexibility.
- Companies with strong cash positions are better positioned in crises.
- High net debt increases financial risk — especially in environments with rising interest rates or economic downturns.
📘 Cash
📈 What is it?
Cash represents all liquid assets a company can access immediately — including cash, bank deposits, and short-term investments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It reflects a company’s financial flexibility and resilience — enabling investments, buybacks, or buffer in downturns.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A strong cash position means greater room for maneuver and crisis resistance.
- Cash-rich companies can invest, pay down debt, or repurchase shares.
- But excess idle cash might indicate a lack of growth opportunities.
📘 Shares Outstanding
📈 What is it?
Shares outstanding represent the total number of a company’s shares currently held by investors — excluding treasury stock.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s the basis for key metrics like Earnings Per Share (EPS), Market Capitalization, or the Price/Earnings ratio (P/E).
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Fewer shares in circulation typically increase earnings per share — making each share more valuable.
- Share buybacks reduce the number of shares and boost per-share metrics.
- Issuing new shares does the opposite — diluting shareholder value and lowering per-share figures.
📘 Price-to-Earnings Ratio (P/E)
📈 What is it?
The P/E ratio shows how many times a company's earnings per share are reflected in its current share price — in other words, how "expensive" the stock appears relative to its profits.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The P/E ratio is one of the most widely used valuation metrics. It helps investors assess whether a stock appears cheap or expensive compared to its earnings power.
🧮 Calculation
📊 P/E (TTM) = Based on earnings from the last 12 months (Trailing Twelve Months):🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/E may indicate undervaluation — or signal underlying issues.
- A high P/E may reflect strong growth expectations — or an overvalued stock.
📘 Price-to-Sales Ratio (P/S)
📈 What is it?
The P/S ratio shows how much investors are paying for $1 of the company’s revenue – regardless of profitability.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/S is especially useful for evaluating growth companies or businesses not yet profitable. It reflects how the market values the company’s sales.
🧮 Calculation
Market Cap = $3.07b | Revenue (TTM) = $1.28b
Market Cap = $3.07b | Estimated Revenue = $1.36b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/S may indicate undervaluation — or low profitability.
- A high P/S can reflect strong growth expectations — or excessive optimism.
- Especially helpful when evaluating companies where profits are low, volatile, or negative.
📘 Enterprise Value to Sales (EV/Sales)
📈 What is it?
EV/Sales shows how much investors are paying for $1 of revenue — considering not just equity, but also debt and cash. It’s the capital structure–adjusted version of the P/S ratio.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s ideal for comparing companies with different levels of debt. It reflects a company's true cost relative to its revenue.
🧮 Calculation
Enterprise Value = $3.01b | Revenue (TTM) = $1.28b
Enterprise Value = $3.01b | Forward Revenue = $1.36b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EV/Sales allows for capital structure–neutral company comparisons.
- A lower ratio may indicate undervaluation; a higher one may signal strong growth expectations or overvaluation.
- Especially helpful when evaluating high-growth companies with low or negative earnings.
📘 Enterprise Value to Free Cash Flow (EV/FCF)
📈 What is it?
EV/FCF shows how many years it would take for a company to "pay back" its enterprise value using its free cash flow.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It focuses on real cash generation, ignoring accounting noise — ideal for assessing profitability and value based on liquidity, not earnings.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low EV/FCF may signal undervaluation and strong cash generation.
- A high EV/FCF might reflect weak recent cash flow or aggressive growth expectations.
- Best suited for stable, mature businesses with predictable free cash flows.
📘 Price-to-Book Ratio (P/B)
📈 What is it?
The P/B ratio compares a company’s market value to its book value — showing how much investors are paying for each dollar of net assets.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/B is commonly used for asset-heavy industries like banks or industrials. It helps assess whether a stock is trading above or below its net asset value.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A P/B below 1 may signal undervaluation — or weak profitability.
- A P/B above 1 implies the market expects future value creation (e.g., brand, IP, growth).
- Best used for companies with tangible assets and strong balance sheets.
📘 Equity Ratio
📈 What is it?
The equity ratio indicates what portion of a company’s total assets is financed by shareholders’ equity – in other words, how much it relies on its own capital.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
A high equity ratio reflects financial strength and stability, especially during downturns. It’s a key indicator of a company’s solvency and long-term risk profile.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Companies with high equity ratios are generally more resilient and less dependent on external debt.
- Low equity ratios can signal higher risk or aggressive financial strategies.
- Important: Always assess the equity ratio in combination with the return on equity (ROE). This shows not just how stable the company is – but also how efficiently it uses shareholder capital.
📘 Return on Equity (ROE)
📈 What is it?
Return on equity (ROE) shows how efficiently a company uses its shareholders’ equity to generate profit. In other words: how much net income is earned per dollar of equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROE is a core profitability metric. It helps investors understand whether a company delivers attractive returns on the capital provided by its shareholders.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROE indicates that the company is using its capital efficiently and profitably.
- It’s especially meaningful for capital-intensive businesses or firms with high equity bases.
- Important: A very high ROE can also result from high debt levels – always interpret it alongside the equity ratio to assess financial health.
📘 Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
📈 What is it?
ROCE measures how efficiently a company generates profits from its total capital – including both equity and interest-bearing debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It evaluates the return on all capital employed, regardless of how it’s financed.
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROCE is ideal for comparing companies with different financing structures. It shows how well management uses capital to create value for both shareholders and creditors.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROCE means the company uses its capital efficiently – regardless of whether it's funded by debt or equity.
- The higher the ROCE compared to peers, the more value the company creates with its invested capital.
- Especially relevant for capital-intensive sectors like industrials, energy, or infrastructure.
📘 Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)
📈 What is it?
ROIC measures how efficiently a company generates returns from the capital invested in its core operations – regardless of whether the capital comes from equity or debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
- NOPAT = Net Operating Profit After Taxes
- Invested Capital = Operating assets minus non-interest-bearing liabilities
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROIC is one of the most accurate indicators of capital efficiency. Unlike return on equity, it is not distorted by leverage and shows how much value is created for all capital providers.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROIC shows how effectively a company uses the capital that is truly invested in its core operations.
- Unlike ROCE, ROIC focuses only on the capital that is actively used to run the business – and that requires a return (i.e. interest-bearing).
- Especially useful when comparing companies with large amounts of excess cash or non-interest-bearing liabilities – giving a more realistic picture of capital efficiency.
📘 Leverage Ratio (Debt-to-Equity)
📈 What is it?
The leverage ratio indicates how much a company relies on interest-bearing debt (such as loans and bonds) relative to its shareholders’ equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
This ratio helps assess a company’s financial structure and risk profile. High leverage can enhance returns – but also increases exposure to interest rate changes and financial stress.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low leverage ratio signals financial strength and independence.
- A higher ratio can improve returns in good times but increases risk during downturns or rising interest rate periods.
- 👉 Always interpret in the context of industry, capital intensity, and interest rate environment.
📘 Revenue
📈 What is it?
Revenue shows how much a company earns in total from selling its products and services – the gross income before any costs are deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Revenue is one of the key figures to assess a company’s size, market position, and growth potential.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing revenue indicates rising demand and can be an early signal of future earnings growth.
- Comparing actual and expected revenue reveals trends in the market environment and analyst sentiment.
- Note: Strong revenue alone isn’t enough – margins and profitability matter just as much.
📘 EBITDA
📈 What is it?
EBITDA stands for “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization.” It reflects a company’s operating profit before the effects of financing, taxes, and accounting depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBITDA is widely used to evaluate a company’s operating performance – especially across capital-intensive sectors or international comparisons.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high or growing EBITDA indicates strong operational profitability – independent of taxes, interest, or accounting methods.
- It’s especially useful for comparing companies across sectors or geographies.
- Important: EBITDA is not a net income figure – it excludes key costs like depreciation and interest.
📘 EBIT
📈 What is it?
EBIT stands for “Earnings Before Interest and Taxes.” It reflects a company’s operating profit after depreciation, but before interest and tax expenses.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT is a core profitability metric that shows how well the company performs in its main business operations – independent of capital structure and tax environment.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT indicates strong profitability from the company’s core business – before financial and tax effects.
- It allows better comparison between companies with different debt levels or tax structures.
- Compared to EBITDA, EBIT already accounts for depreciation and reflects capital intensity more clearly.
📘 Net Income
📈 What is it?
Net income is the company’s total profit – the amount left after all expenses, taxes, interest, and depreciation have been deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the most comprehensive measure of a company’s profitability – showing how much actual profit remains after all business and financing costs.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing net income indicates that the company is managing all of its costs efficiently.
- It directly influences valuation metrics like P/E ratio and the company’s dividend capacity.
- Over time, net income trends reveal how resilient and profitable the business model really is.
📘 Free Cash Flow (FCF)
📈 What is it?
Free Cash Flow shows how much actual cash remains after a company covers its operating expenses and capital expenditures.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF reflects a company’s real financial strength – regardless of accounting profits. It shows how much flexibility a company has for dividends, share buybacks, or debt reduction.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High free cash flow means the company generates real, usable cash – independent of reported net income.
- It’s often the most reliable base for sustainable dividends and buybacks.
- Declining FCF can be an early warning sign – even when profits appear stable.
📘 Revenue Growth
📈 What is it?
Revenue growth shows how much a company’s sales have changed compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on forward projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected revenue ÷ Revenue in prior year − 1) × 100
Forward growth is based on analyst estimates for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Rising revenue signals growing demand, business expansion, and market share gains – especially important for growth-oriented companies.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growth is the engine of long-term value creation – especially in tech and growth sectors.
- What matters is not just current growth, but its sustainability.
- Forward projections reflect whether analysts expect continued momentum – or a slowdown.
📘 EBITDA Growth
📈 What is it?
EBITDA growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) has increased or decreased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBITDA ÷ EBITDA from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Growing EBITDA indicates improving operational profitability – regardless of financing or accounting effects.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Strong EBITDA growth signals operational efficiency and scalability – especially during growth phases.
- EBITDA growth can be an early indicator of margin and earnings expansion – but should be assessed alongside revenue and EBIT.
📘 EBIT Growth
📈 What is it?
EBIT growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (after depreciation, but before interest and taxes) has increased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBIT ÷ EBIT from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT growth is a direct indicator of a company’s business performance – taking into account capital intensity through depreciation.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Rising EBIT signals improving operating profitability – even after accounting for depreciation.
- It’s especially important for evaluating companies with significant capital expenditures.
- Combined with revenue and EBITDA growth, EBIT growth provides a well-rounded view of operational progress.
📘 Net Income Growth
📈 What is it?
Net income growth shows how much a company’s bottom-line profit has increased or decreased compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on analyst projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected net income ÷ Net income from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate reflects analysts’ expectations for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the ultimate measure of profitability. Growing net income signals stronger efficiency, cost control, and sustainable earnings power.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Stronger net income boosts valuation, dividend potential, and investor confidence.
- If profits stall while revenue grows, it may signal margin pressure.
📘 Free Cash Flow Growth
📈 What is it?
Free cash flow (FCF) growth shows how a company’s available cash – after covering operating expenses and capital expenditures – has changed compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Free cash flow reflects real financial strength. Growing FCF indicates more flexibility for dividends, share buybacks, and reinvestment.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Declining FCF may point to rising investments, increasing costs, or weaker operating performance.
- Especially for dividend investors, FCF growth is critical – since dividends are paid from actual available cash.
- A negative trend isn't always bad, but it deserves closer attention.
📘 Gross Margin
📈 What is it?
Gross margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains after deducting the direct costs of goods sold (like materials and production). It represents the company’s “raw profit” before fixed costs, taxes, and interest.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Or simply: Gross Margin = Gross Profit ÷ Revenue × 100
🏛️ Why is it important?
Gross margin indicates how efficiently a company can produce or procure what it sells. It is a key measure of product-level profitability and pricing power.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high gross margin suggests strong pricing power and efficient production.
- Falling margins may signal rising input costs or competitive pressure.
- Compared to peers, gross margin offers insights into the quality of a business model.
📘 EBITDA Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBITDA margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as operating profit before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.It reflects operating efficiency without being distorted by financing or accounting factors.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBITDA margin reveals how much operating income a company generates per dollar of revenue – independent of capital structure and tax effects.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBITDA margin reflects strong core profitability – before accounting distortions.
- It allows for effective comparisons across companies and sectors.
- A stable or growing margin signals efficient cost control and business scalability.
📘 EBIT Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBIT margin shows what percentage of revenue remains as operating profit after depreciation but before interest and taxes.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBIT margin reflects a company’s core profitability while accounting for capital intensity (e.g. machinery, infrastructure). It’s especially useful for comparing businesses with different levels of depreciation.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT margin shows that the company remains efficient even after factoring in depreciation.
- It’s especially relevant for capital-intensive industries.
- Stable or rising EBIT margins over time are a strong indicator of pricing power and business quality.
📘 Net margin
📈 What is it?
Net margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as bottom-line profit after deducting all costs, interest, taxes, and depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net margin reflects a company’s overall efficiency – across operations, financing, and taxation. It shows how much actual profit is generated from each dollar of revenue.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high net margin means the company is not only strong operationally but also manages financing and taxes efficiently.
- Peer comparisons reveal business quality and competitiveness.
- Declining margins despite revenue growth can be a red flag for rising costs or inefficiencies.
📘 Free cash flow margin
📈 What is it?
The free cash flow (FCF) margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as actual free cash after covering all operating expenses and capital expenditures.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
This margin reflects the true liquidity generated by the business – independent of accounting rules or depreciation. It’s especially relevant for dividends, buybacks, and reinvestment decisions.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high FCF margin means a company consistently generates strong cash flow.
- It’s a positive signal for financial stability and shareholder returns.
- The long-term trend is key – a declining margin may indicate rising investments or weakening operating efficiency.
📘 Earnings per share (EPS)
📈 What is it?
Earnings per Share (EPS) shows how much profit is attributable to a single share – and is one of the most important metrics for evaluating a company's performance.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The diluted share count reflects potential new shares that could be issued through options, convertible bonds, or other rights.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EPS is the basis for many key valuation metrics like P/E ratio, PEG ratio, or payout ratio. It enables comparisons of profitability across companies, regardless of their size.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EPS captures per-share profitability and is especially useful for comparisons over time or with analyst estimates.
- Rising EPS may signal consistent growth or share buybacks.
- Important: Always use diluted EPS for more realistic valuations – especially in companies with stock-based compensation.
📘 Free cash flow per share (FCF per share)
📈 What is it?
Free Cash Flow per Share shows how much free cash flow a company generates per outstanding share – after investments, but before dividends or debt repayments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Free cash flow is calculated as operating cash flow minus capital expenditures (CapEx).
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF per Share reveals how much real cash is available per share – useful for dividends, buybacks, or reducing debt. Unlike net income, free cash flow is harder to manipulate and often seen as a more reliable metric.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High FCF per share signals strong financial flexibility.
- It shows how much capital the company can effectively reinvest or return to shareholders.
- Particularly relevant for dividend payers and capital-efficient businesses.
📘 Short interest
📈 What is it?
Short interest indicates how many shares of a company are currently sold short – that is, borrowed and sold by investors who expect the price to decline.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It reflects the percentage of a company’s shares that are being shorted relative to the total shares available.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Short interest serves as a sentiment indicator: A high value may signal skepticism or bearish expectations – but also increases the potential for a short squeeze if prices rise unexpectedly.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low short interest usually indicates market confidence in the company.
- High short interest can be a warning sign – or an opportunity if sentiment shifts.
- Especially relevant in volatile markets or ahead of key earnings releases.
📘 Employees
📈 What is it?
The employee count shows how many people a company employs worldwide – offering insights into its size, structure, and business model.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps assess operational scale, labor intensity, and cost structure. Combined with revenue and profit, it enables key metrics like revenue per employee or productivity.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high headcount can signal operational complexity – but also significant growth capacity.
- Revenue per employee is a key indicator of efficiency.
- Especially useful for comparing tech, industrial, or service-heavy companies.
📘 Turnover per employee
📈 What is it?
Revenue per employee indicates how much revenue a company generates on average per employee – a key measure of efficiency and productivity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The employee count is typically taken from the most recent annual report.
🏛️ Why is it important?
This metric helps compare business models – especially between labor-intensive and technology-driven companies. A high value suggests automation, operational efficiency, or strong value creation per head.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high revenue per employee indicates a scalable and margin-strong business model.
- A low figure may reflect labor-intensive operations or lower value-add.
- Especially helpful when comparing tech companies to industrial or service sectors.
Kyivstar Group Stock Analysis
Analyst Opinions
14 Analysts have issued a Kyivstar Group forecast:
Analyst Opinions
14 Analysts have issued a Kyivstar Group forecast:
Kyivstar Group Events
Past Events
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JUL
31
Q2 2026 Earnings Call
about 2 months ago
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MAY
14
Q1 2026 Earnings Call
4 months ago
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MAR
13
Q4 2025 Earnings Call
6 months ago
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StocksGuide Free
Kyivstar Group — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
[Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. Cole Akeson, you may begin.
Thank you. As noted, I am Cole Akeson, Group Director for Kyivstar Investor Relations. Joining me today are Executive Chairman, Kaan Terzioglu; CEO, Oleksandr Komarov. Oleksandr Komarov, CFO, Taner Kiziltoprak; and Anand Ramachandran, the Chief Corporate Development Officer for VEON.
Before we begin, please note the date for your calendars. We will be hosting our first Capital Markets Day on November 16 in New York City. Details will follow. Returning to earnings. Oleksandr will begin with strategic and operational highlights, followed by Taner with a review of our financial performance.
We will then open the line for your questions. Before we begin, please note that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties. Further details are available in our SEC filings, including our Form 20-F filed March 16, 2026. Our earnings release and presentation are available on our Investor Relations website. With that, I'll hand over to Oleksandr.
Thank you, Cole. Hello, everyone. I'm very pleased to see some of you here in New York in person. So we delivered another strong quarter. Our telecom core is resilient. Our digital ecosystem keeps scaling. The 2 businesses fit each other, and we are raising our full year outlook for the second time this year. Let me start with the numbers.
Revenue reached $339 million, up more than 19% year-over-year. EBITDA grew nearly 14% to $188 million with healthy margins in both businesses. Equity free cash flow grew more than 32% to $104 million. Cash generation funds our growth. Second, our digital transformation. Digital revenue grew 83% year-over-year. This is one first quarter with Uklon in both comparison periods. So the comparison is clean. Digital reached 21.7% of total revenue from just over 14% a year ago.
This is a structural shift, not a side project. Third, our multiplay strategy, 8.1 million multiplay customers, up almost 24% year-over-year. They pay more and they churn less. I will come back to the mechanics. Finally, 3 strategic developments during this quarter. The first one is Starlink.
More than 6 million customers have used Direct-to-Cell, which now also carries light data for essential applications even without terrestrial signal. The second one is energy. We acquired 6 solar power plants in the Lviv region, strengthening our energy independence and hedging our electricity costs.
The third one is sovereign AI infrastructure. More about this when we discuss the digital enterprise vertical. As for the scorecard, Telecom and Infrastructure revenue grew nearly 9% to $265 million on rising ARPU and data usage. Within EBITDA, Telecom and Infrastructure generated $157 million at a 59% margin and digital generated $31 million at a 42% margin. Both engines are profitable.
Net profit declined nearly 6% year-over-year to $77 million or $0.33 per share. The cause of the paper decline is one-off noncash item, a $21 million fair value change charge on our listed warrants. Taner will walk you through the mechanics and more later. Let's look at the mobile business, starting with subscribers.
Our mobile base declined nearly 3% year-over-year to 21.8 million customers. The main mechanism is double SIMers. Many Ukrainians carry secondary low-ARPU SIM cards. When they stop using extra cards, they fell out of the customer base. Demographics and seasonality play a role. Internal and the third-party estimates put our market share steady at approximately 47%. We focus on the quality of the base, not the volume.
The quality shows in 3 numbers. The first one is churn, down almost a full point year-over-year to just over 14% annualized. The second one is ARPU. It grew more than 11% to $3.90. The third one is usage. 4G penetration passed 70% and monthly data consumption grew more than 18% to almost 15 gigabytes per customer.
These drive our double-digit telecom revenue growth in hryvnia. Fixed broadband grew nearly 11% to 1.3 million customers, households. Nearly half of them also subscribe to Kyivstar TV. One product pulls the other into the household. The fragmented market leaves room for organic and inorganic growth.
Multiplay is a core of our engagement model. So let me explain the mechanics. A multiplay customer uses voice, data and at least one of our digital applications. These customers now represent almost 40% of our 1 month active base, up more than 8 points from a year ago and stable quarter-on-quarter at 8.1 million.
The economics are simple. A multiplay customer generates $5.80 in monthly ARPU, compare that with the $3.90 of a mobile-only customer, a difference of nearly 50%. Multiplay customers also churn less. Engagement drives the top line and retention protects it. Now the digital ecosystem. This chart shows hryvnia figures to eliminate currency effects from the comparison basis, but I will focus my comments on our important currency, the U.S. dollars.
Digital revenue reached $74 million, up 83% year-over-year and now makes up almost 22% of total revenue. Three points stand behind this performance. The first one is the broad base of our growth that spans all 5 verticals with Uklon the biggest contributor.
The second one is profitability. Digital EBITDA reached $31 million at 42% margin compared with almost 44% a year ago. The small decline reflects investment in new services as we scale the business. These platforms pay their own way. The third one is structure.
Our telecom base gives a customer acquisition at a near 0 cost and multiplay bundles are our distribution channel. Moving to Uklon, our mobility platform. Uklon generated almost $33 million in revenue this quarter, up more than 50% year-over-year and more than $12 million in EBITDA, up more than 35%. Real scale in Ukraine, a growing operation in Uzbekistan.
Active customers grew 8% to 5.2 million. Rides grew more than 4% to 43 million and deliveries grew almost 26% to 1.4 million. Uklon is becoming a one-stop solution for movement around and between cities. There are 3 moves to note. The first one is a multimodal transport. We agreed to acquire E-wings, which adds electric scooters in 11 Ukrainian cities.
With the travel service for intercity buses, Uklon covers more of the journey. Remember, Ukraine remains a no-fly zone, so buses and trains carry the country. The second one is autonomy. Uklon run Ukraine's first live testing of autonomous vehicle technology. Uklon leader, Serhii and I tested it personally, which you can watch on our YouTube channel.
This technology is still at an early stage, but our testing places us first in this space at home. The third one is commerce. Our Uklon store pilot starts with the same-day flower delivery in Kyiv, applying Uklon's expertise in space adjacent to mobility. On the healthcare, Helsi is Ukraine's leading health tech platform. Helsi served 5 million customers this quarter and revenue grew almost 36% year-over-year to $2.4 million.
The engine behind this growth is premium subscription from 57,000 subscribers at the end of last year to more than 109,000 today. Family medical care plans and health insights, automatic interpretation of test results, biomarker tracking drive the conversion and our Helsi Superpower bundle inside Kyivstar mobile plan is a core channel to distribute.
The foundation keeps widening, more than 43,000 doctors and specialists around 1,800 health care institutions and 2.4 million patient appointments booked in the quarter. Helsi is deeply embedded in the state e-health system, convenient to join and hard to leave.
It also eases access to health care during the war, which we are considering as a national priority. Then Tabletki the leading online marketplace for pharmaceuticals and other health care products. Its first full quarter with us after consolidation in February. The quarter was strong. Revenue reached $7.8 million and EBITDA reached $6.2 million, an implied margin close to 80%.
The margin follows from the model. Customers booked $376 million of gross merchandise value, but we recognize as revenue only our commission and service fees, low capital, very, very high conversion. The scale is national, 6.3 million customers, 15 million average monthly bookings and more than 14,500 partner pharmacies across the whole Ukraine.
Helsi and Tabletki have natural synergies, and we are building towards a more connected patient journey from doctor's appointment to prescription to a medicine order, and we are evaluating whether delivery could join that flow. We are taking a deliberate approach so that any changes serve customers well, create shareholders' value and comply with regulatory requirements. Moving to entertainment. Kyivstar TV remains the largest media streaming service in Ukraine. The customer base grew almost 48% year-over-year to 3.6 million, and revenue reached nearly $14 million. To be clear, the growth rate mainly reflects the move to gross revenue recognition last September, but underlying drivers are real, a bigger customer base, a high-demand exclusive content.
Last quarter, I told you we would broadcast world boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk's latest high-profile boxing match. We delivered with exclusive rights to the Usyk-Rico Verhoeven fight in Ukraine, alongside premieres such as "Kill House" and the deep library of international and Ukrainian content.
Local -- exclusive local content acquires customers and the ecosystem keeps them inside. From B2C to B2B, digital enterprise serves companies and institutions from small businesses to the largest. Revenue grew almost 16% year-over-year to $16.9 million.
Active contracts grew more than 29% to 2,400. Two product lines drive the growth, big data and AI services and cloud. Advisor, our self-service advertising platform passed 4,100 registered clients. Now sovereign AI, 2 milestones this quarter. The first one is Syayvo, our Ukrainian large language model in Kyivstar Tech portfolio.
The latest model 4B, a kind of pilot model entered beta testing and has achieved high marks in local competitive testing. The second one is infrastructure. In June, at the Ukrainian Recovery Conference, we signed a memorandum with Ukraine's Ministry of Economy to explore expanded cooperation in sovereign AI infrastructure.
Any investment would be faced within our existing CapEx framework, disciplined capital national capability. All these parts serve one growth strategy. We are digital and communication service provider with a strong backbone in our telco business. In core connectivity, we intend to maintain market leadership.
We focus on a high-quality customer base and technological innovation. This quarter launch of direct-to-sell light data is a good example. We grow ARPU by expanding value to the customers, not just through price. In fixed broadband, we aim to expand market share through organic growth and targeted acquisitions.
Broadband brings entire households into our ecosystem. In digital, we scale through organic growth and strategic acquisitions, increased multiplay adoption and deepen daily engagement with our customers. Our loyal telecom base is the launch part for digital products.
The next slide shows how we build the ecosystem step by step since late 2024. Spectrum, Uklon, Helsi, Starlink direct-to-sell, solar, Tabletki Shtorm, each move fits the same design. The newest one is energy. In May, we completed the acquisition of 6 solar power plants in the Lviv region, 105 megawatts total power for roughly $81 million.
With our first plant, SUNVIN, our capacity now stands at 118 megawatts. Expected output equals roughly 30% of the electricity our telecom operations consume in a year. The logic is clear. energy independence that hedges a major operational cost and reduces our exposure to potential green instability during the war. With that, I will ask Taner to walk you through the financials.
Thank you, Oleksandr. It's a pleasure to join my first earnings call as a Kyivstar's CFO. Let me walk through the mechanics of the quarter. Total revenue reached UAH 15 billion, up 27% year-over-year, $339 million, up 19%.
EBITDA grew 21% to UAH 8.3 billion or $188 million. Digital's lower margin comes with lower capital intensity. So its cash conversion is comparable to telecoms, the resulting cash flow funds our expansion. Below EBITDA, one item deserves precision, the warrant charge.
Our listed warrants are a fair value liability, $49 million at the end of June against $28 million at the end of March. The $21 million increase runs through the income statement as a noncash loss, driven only by the warrants market price at quarter end. Net profit came to $77 million. Without the warrant item, it would have been $98 million.
On investment, CapEx was $59 million, 17% of revenue for the quarter, almost 27% over the last 12 months. On cash, net cash flow from operating activities reached $170 million and equity free cash flow after leases and licenses reached $104 million, up 32% year-over-year, $243 million over the last 12 months.
Turning on balance sheet. We ended June with $364 million of cash and equivalents, up from $353 million at the end of March. Free cash flow absorbs the solar acquisition payment and still grew the position. Gross debt, excluding leases, stands at $88 million, largely payable to our majority shareholders VEON.
Lease liabilities totaled $400 million, mainly from our tower agreements with Ukraine Tower Company recognized under IFRS 16. Excluding leases, we hold a net liquidity position of $277 million. The balance sheet gives us room to keep investing from our own cash generation. Let me hand the call back to Oleksandr.
Thank you, Taner. Let me close with the outlook. We are raising full year guidance for the second time this year. The first half gives us the confidence. In Grivna, we now expect revenue to grow 21% to 23% and EBITDA to grow 17% to 19%. In dollars, that is 14% to 16% revenue growth and 9% to 12% EBITDA growth.
There are a couple of important background items to keep in mind here. The first one is the exchange rate. In the past, we guide in both our reporting and trading currency with a fixed currency assumption. This is a factor outside our control, along with the wider geopolitical and macroeconomic environment.
The second one is the comparison base. From this quarter, Uklon sits in both periods. So growth rates describe the underlying business. Tabletki and our investment in energy assets had inorganic growth through the second quarter of 2027. CapEx intensity stays at 21% to 24% of revenue.
We are past the peak of our elevated investment cycle, and we allocate within a disciplined framework. And one more item for your calendars. On November 16, we will hold our first ever Capital Markets Day in New York City.
We will present a medium-term update, strategy, the unit economics of the ecosystem and the capital allocation framework. Details will follow from our Investor Relations team. We hope to see you there. To wrap up, the quarter shows our model working.
The telecom core generates cash and the digital ecosystem compounds growth. We are delivering double-digit growth in most verticals despite external volatility. Our business remains strong and profitable. Thank you for your support. We can now open for the line for the Q&A.
[Operator Instructions].
2. Question Answer
Jesse Sobelson with U.S. Bancorp BTIG. I had a 2-parter on the AI initiatives. First, on Syayvo. Can you walk me through why Kyivstar would build out a national LLM? And is the value of the model itself? Or is it really about your proprietary Ukrainian data and distribution? And then secondly, on the data center MoU, what's actually in scope? Does it commit capital? Or is it just a feasibility study?
Okay. Let me start with the second question, and then I will ask Taner to take the second one, okay? The first one is quite simple, okay? So we are a big believer in the sovereign AI infrastructure, okay? From our perspective, it's just a matter of time. Of course, we are a bit affected by the current war situation and certain mitigation actions, but I'm absolutely sure that after the war, Ukraine as any other country will return to the sovereignty issue, okay? This is one aspect.
The second aspect, we see a growing demand in market demand where government is the main customer, potentially the main customer, okay? And the third one, we are considering telco business ourselves and a much better prepared than anyone else to develop, to invest and to run AI infrastructure across Ukraine.
And at the end, -- so as it was stated by Kaan Terzioglu at the previous call, at the end, every our customer will use AI. And taking into account a relatively low income and low ARPU country, we need to find a way how to combine and to create synergies between global AI providers and local capabilities. And at the end, I'm absolutely sure that 90% of all questions and requests will be, to some extent, compute inside Ukraine with a local infrastructure and local LLM with the most difficult questions and request lifted to the global brain. So based on this assumption, we are taking an initiative.
We see a request from the Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Digital Transformation, and we are considering the way how we can develop the national AI infrastructure.
For the data center side, we are continuously evaluating all the options on the table for them in terms of the CapEx intensity side, we directly plan all our investment plans within the guidance of the CapEx intensity levels, '21 to '24.
Maybe one thing to add because you mentioned the distribution, and it's a very important point. We consider connectivity as the foundation and our competitive advantage. If you look to the numbers, 22 million telecom customers, 6 million Tabletki customers, 5 million Uklon customers. Practically, every single person in Ukraine and outside of Ukraine is our customer. And that gives us a major advantage to distribute any additional service at a fraction of the cost.
Okay. I guess the next question. So I'm Vincent Fernando with 01 Investment Research. So first question is I just want to understand a bit how the Starlink service works with your subscribers. So you mentioned you had 6 million users who would use the direct sell service.
Does every user basically onboard on to Starlink, -- so if they go off like the tower network, then they roll on to it? Or do they have to sign up for a special subscription? And I have -- my second question is just to understand, you have Helsi, which is a huge footprint across the country, right, in terms of like the users. And now you have Tabletki, which you've acquired. Obviously, a lot of synergies between those 2 businesses. How should we see that rolling out in terms of how the synergies roll out in a time line? Because I know it takes some time for us to kind of integrate and figure things out. And at some point, maybe then you have kind of a revenue lift as you kind of basically use Helsi to expand Tabletki. Just want to understand the time line of that rollout, those 2 questions.
Okay. Let me start with the satellites. So we are a big believer in cooperation between terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks. Right now, our cooperation is with 2 SpaceX verticals. The first one is Starlink Mobile, okay? With the Starlink Mobile, we have 2 types of services. The first service is SMS, okay? And SMS is available to every Kyivstar customer without any extra charge.
It's embedded in our telecom value proposition, okay? And we are considering that this is part of our humanitarian mission. In this very difficult environment, okay, with the energy supply issues, we should give our customers opportunities to stay connected. The second layer of Starlink Mobile is light data. With the light data, we did a first step to monetize the service.
Light data either embedded into the high-value premium subscriptions as a part of the value proposition or you can connect this service as a part of the Superpower ecosystem available to our customers, okay? For some of them, if they have free slots, it might be free of charge, but it is a certain competition for the superpower like Kyivstar TV or healthy subscription.
So it's up to the customer to decide or you can connect this on the paid base, okay, for the extra monthly fee. And these are the first steps to start monetization of the satellite services. And the second pillar that we are developing with SpaceX right now is resell of the fixed satellite broadband services in Ukraine. We are the first Kyivstar is the first official reseller of the Starlink services and hardware in Ukraine for the business and public institutions. And this is just a pure resell business. Okay. The second question is about Helsi and Tabletki. You are absolutely right. You should consider, let's say, Tabletki acquisition from the perspective of strengthening our digital health vertical.
Yes, there are 2 different entities, 2 different businesses. But in our midterm perspective is a digital vertical that is helpful to the clients since first symptoms until full recovery. And as I mentioned here, there are plenty of synergies, yes. We are carefully developing this plan with the first initiatives. But the idea that healthy application is a kind of universal helper is a universal adviser for you, okay, is a universal window to the health world, okay?
So with Tabletki being embedded as a part of the value proposition, okay? And yes, the third element of the synergies is potential delivery provided by Uklon. We are doing first steps here. You are absolutely right. We are right now much more focused on the proper integration of the Tabletki business into the group because it's just a 4 months old acquisition, okay? So -- but our plans are very much about potential synergies.
Can you give any rough color on when that really rolls out, when the synergies can have, like, a couple of quarters?
It will not roll like a one-off, okay? What you will see is a gradual improvement of the business metrics, so joint products, okay? And I hope as a result for the investor, we will be able to stay with this quite significant, let's say, 35%, 40% growth rate in the hard currency in our digital health vertical.
Do we have any other questions from the room?
If not, if you're all thinking, we can move to some of the questions from our online participants.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Max Findlay with Rothschild & Co.
First of all, welcome, Taner, to your first earnings call as CFO. I'm sure you hope they continue as they did today with guidance upgrades. My first question's on mobile revenues. So reported from the energy acquisition made in May, which may have contributed $4 million to $5 million for the quarter. So it looks like underlying growth has slowed from near 10% in Q1 to about 5% in Q2. And this slowdown seems to be driven by pricing. I've noticed the sequential ARPU increases have slowed down a bit. So the question in short is, is it getting harder to grow pricing?
And my second question is there's been another fantastic quarter for digital services growth, as you've talked about on the call. And in particular, I noticed Uklon's growth was very strong again and at 50% is growing faster than when you acquired the business, which from memory was growing at a 30% CAGR. How much are the different business lines, such as Uklon Travel that you've introduced, helping contribute to this accelerated growth? And could you give us some color on what the opportunities are here and also Uzbekistan as well?
Okay. Let me start with the second one, and then I will ask Taner to address the first question. So Uklon growth of 50% year-on-year consists of 2 major elements. The first one is the business growth, okay, organic business growth driven by ride-hailing and delivery, okay? So -- and this is around 35-plus percent of the overall growth, okay? And the rest 15% is driven by the new accounting approach as a gross up of the B2B Uklon revenue.
So according to the IFRS that we applied, but it's actually reflected in the past period also. So that's why this 50% constitutes of actually 2 elements, okay? The growth is mainly provided by ride-hailing business, okay, plus delivery. So these are 2 main growing elements. We are doing certain pilots with the bus transportation and ticketing and marketplace embedded into the application, but their impact is marginal at this stage. Okay. So Taner, please.
Thank you very much, first of all. Yes, we have a strong revenue growth in the second quarter with, I mean, 27% hryvnia based and also 19% U.S. dollar based. Also, you know that we have acquisition in February, Tabletki, and also we have a solar power acquisition in the May. So all this, I mean, acquisition is going to have positive impact for the following months and quarters as well.
On top of it, also except from these -- I mean -- impacts, these -- I mean, acquisitions, we have directly also strong organic growth, which is, I mean, 23% in revenue base when we directly extract these acquisitions' effects on the table. And please also keep in mind that we have also negative effect coming from the beginning of the year due to this new regulation to negatively impact our revenue.
But all in all, I mean, the positive impact coming from this acquisition, mainly Tabletki and also energy assets, we are going to keep our revenue -- strong revenue growth for the following quarters.
Our next question comes from Adrian Cundy with Emerging & Frontier Capital.
I wanted to touch on -- extend, really, on sort of Uklon and marketplace and sort of where you sort of see the opportunities in Ukraine and digital financial services. Last call, you mentioned that some of the major wallet providers in Ukraine were very robustly valued. At the same time, I've been reading that there's -- Ukraine is moving steadily towards open banking.
And I'm just wondering, should we be expecting to sort of see Uklon evolve into sort of adding a digital wallet service? Or where do you sort of see the digital financial services opportunity in Ukraine going forward? And that's just given Chairman Kaan's comments on VEON that DFS is a priority in every single market that the group operates in.
Okay. So first of all, we are doing just first steps to develop a marketplace embedded into the Uklon application, okay? And this is very much linked to our delivery competitive advantage. You should see the essence why it is flowers, okay? Because people are interested in a relatively quick delivery right now, okay?
So -- and this is what we are piloting right now. Maybe it's too early to say how it will evolve. Right now, we are servicing hundreds of customers per day, okay? And we want to understand what are the other categories that might be interested in such type of fast delivery from one side and relatively, let's say, high margin from another side because it's a certain combination of the type of the product with delivery need, okay?
But let me once again stress that we see a very great potential in delivery business. Our own perception that this business is underdeveloped in our Uklon portfolio for the time being, okay? And all these steps is how to strengthen the delivery, first of all, okay?
The second question is it seems to be broader than just Uklon question. I have already declared many times that we have 2 major priorities at the KGL in developing our ecosystem. The first one is the marketplace and the second one is finance services. Ukrainian financial market -- finance market is well developed. We have a lot of different institutions. It's a highly competitive market, okay?
But taking into account our relationship with the millions of customers, engagement, a huge gross merchandise value, that we can effectively manage, okay? We see ourselves in the future as a finance service provider in order to achieve 2 objectives. The first one is to actually decrease our transaction cost and to manage this gross merchandise value in the most effective way. And the second one is to find a value for the potential credit, okay?
We are just at the kind of feasibility stage right now in Ukraine, okay, because it's a new regulation. It's a very difficult regulator to deal with, okay? There is a really extremely high competition with a well-developed almost, let's say, global-scale institutions like monobank or PrivatBank that are in front of the privatization. But we are actively considering potential scenarios, how we can strengthen KGL ecosystem and Uklon in particular.
And by the way, this question is even more, let's say, important from 2027 when the new legislation on the ride-hailing will be imposed, and we will be able to manage the whole gross merchandise value that is created by Uklon business.
So it's not out of the realm of possibilities that you could start having, taking, storing capital in Uklon users' accounts in the next couple of years and then engaging in financial intermediation?
Yes. In general, yes.
Okay. I have a second question, which is unrelated to digital financial services, but it sort of comes back off the data center comments. And you've expressed in previous calls, sort of, a dream of having a next-gen fiber backbone infrastructure for all players in the Ukraine.
So as you look at investing across data centers, obviously, that creates significant backhaul needs. You move a lot of data between your towers and through your network. How much -- are you investing a lot in fiber, not just to the home, but backhaul and that basic level infrastructure? And is there a potential for a net link or an industry-wide sort of fiber broad backbone company evolving?
Let me address this question from a different perspective. From the operational perspective, we are not investing a lot into the fiber because we already have one of the biggest fiber infrastructure across Ukraine. Our current fiber is more than 50,000 kilometers of backbone, backhaul and last mile, okay? At the same time, at the same time, Ukraine has a relatively developed fiber business. We have few players more or less the same scale in Ukraine.
And yes, we are considering how we can, first, optimize our investments. And I can give you -- I can't give you it's going to be a forward-looking statement, sorry, okay? So -- but we are looking how we can optimize investments into the new infrastructures through a certain competition between the major players, number one. We are ready to consider nonorganic development into the FiberCo, okay, if we will see an opportunity to create, kind of, a point of the valuation based on our FiberCo infrastructure, okay, that can be monetized, okay?
So as a stand-alone business through certain FiberCo, NetCo and ServiceCo separation. So we have quite strategic plans, but we will act situationally. For the time being, we are very much focused to ensure readiness for 5G. And one of the key element of this readiness is fiber penetration to the site. We already reached around 50% across the whole country and up to 70% across some of the cities.
Okay. You sound like you're making good progress and congratulations on another good quarter.
As just an addition for Oleksandr, we directly, as an inorganic play, we directly, in February, we directly acquired Shtorm to expand our fixed broadband market share with $10 million. As an information.
And this is including a certain infrastructure in this specific region, of course. So every acquisition of the fixed broadband business, and this is the second for us during the last 2 years, is actually coming with a certain elements of the infrastructure.
All right. Congratulations again on a solid quarter.
Our next question comes from Matthew Harrigan with StoneX.
It's actually fairly amusing a few days ago when the AT&T stock rallied because Starlink hadn't really hurt their business, a little premature to be worrying about that on a backwards-looking basis. And clearly, the mobile business is pretty protected given the penetration issues and latency and all that. But when you get version 3 deployed in the Starlink '28, '29, obviously, there are a lot of concerns on broadband. It's affected the cable stocks in the U.S. a lot.
And clearly, you've got some advantages in that your price point doesn't remotely resemble what it is in the U.S. or even some European markets. But how do you feel about the Starlink issue? And your broadband business, again, it's much smaller than digital or mobile. But is that a really -- real developing concern in terms of the competitiveness of broadband? I mean, obviously, it's the highest-capacity network, but you're still going to have some of this cheap and cheerful potential price competition.
I don't see any issues with Starlink broadband business development in Ukraine because of a few reasons. The reason number one, Ukraine has a very, very high penetration of fiber, either it's FTTB or FTTH technology, okay? Ukraine is a relatively low ARPU country, okay? And from my perspective, I don't see any reason to pay premium and to substitute your home connection, existing fixed connection that can be easily upgrade right now from 100 megabit to 1 gigabit, from 1 gigabit to a few gigabits.
So -- and I don't see any reason to do this because in any case, fixed terrestrial broadband is a bit stable, okay, and high-quality service than, let's say, Starlink fixed broadband business, okay? But I see a number of very important use cases, taken into account the current war situation in Ukraine, number one.
Second one, for a relative semi-fixed/mobility because there are people who are using this on their cars, okay? And there is a certain market need that we would like to satisfy with our resale agreement signed between Kyivstar and SpaceX a few months ago.
And sort of a fuzzy second question. I think even with some economic growth in Ukraine in the last couple of years, you're still off 20% or so on GDP from pre-invasion. And you've got a big diaspora. I know you've got some customers there as well.
But when you -- if we do hopefully pray for a settlement in Ukraine, do you think you're going to get a substantial step-function improvement in your business? I mean, obviously, you'll get some benefits filtered in over a number of years on massive reconstruction funds and all that. But -- and I know it's premature, but it seems like it's certainly something that boosts your long-term potential, to say the least.
For sure, no doubt. So I think that we are ready from many perspective. The first perspective, we are probably the most compliant international platform, okay? So for the future investments into the reconstruction. We are simultaneously an infrastructure business, critical infrastructure business and in the consumer digital business, okay? And I'm absolutely sure that there will be actually 2 very big positive outcomes, extra investments into the critical infrastructure, strengthening infrastructure, developing infrastructure across Ukraine, where we can play a significant role.
But the second one is a certain return of the population. I don't know how many, 20%, 30%, 40% of the population will be back, and these are our digital customers. As it was underlined by Kaan, okay? So we are literally servicing every Ukrainian with the different types of services, okay? And nonorganic growing population because of the return will have a positive impact on our business.
And just in addition, we are also leading most of the pillars in Ukraine, I mean mobile, fixed, TV, healthcare, ride-hailing. So there's also, I mean, this leading advantage also.
Our next question will come from Nicholas Paton with Edison Group.
Could you just talk a little bit about the conversion from the earnings growth guidance you've given and the cash flow? How do you see the free cash flow moving over the next half and into 2027?
Taner, please.
Yes. Okay. Let me take it. In this quarter, we directly generated $104 million cash generation, which is not a near -- I mean, normally, we generate $30 million monthly basis, which is a bit normal for us. For the following quarter, we also expect this, I mean, at least $30 million cash generation for the quarters.
And also just for the adding this quarter, I mean, our CapEx intensity is lower. This is totally seasonal thing. So we are going to keep our guidance for this CapEx intensity for the following quarter as well to keep our guidance and also continue for this cash generation.
And a follow-up for Kaan. I mean it's notable that the revenue guidance for VEON is slightly above that for Kyivstar, but the EBITDA guidance is the same. How do you reconcile those 2 things?
Well, since the beginning of the year, of course, at VEON level, we have raised our both revenue and EBITDA guidance. And the same thing is true for Kyivstar. This is their second time on both revenue and EBITDA guidance. I think reconciliation is not necessarily the way I look at it. I look at it as a portfolio of 5 different countries. We mentioned in the previous call, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, in terms of our expectations. So I would be looking at it from a portfolio perspective, and I'm actually quite comfortable with where we are as it stands now.
Our next question will come from James Ong with New Street Research.
I just have 2 questions. I think first is considering guidance. So even considering the Uklon acquisition not fully accounted for in the first half, is this new guidance, especially with regards to EBITDA conservative, considering especially first half EBITDA performance?
And secondly, may I know if you can share more on the decline in mobile customers, specifically in the double or multi-SIM unwind trend? Is it largely completed now? Or can we expect more to come?
Let me start with the second question, James. So we are not declining in the subscriber market share. We are stable in the subscriber market share. You see a certain decline in the number of active SIM cards across the market, okay? And we are declining in line with the market. And there are a number of very clear reasons. The first one is decline of the second SIM penetration into the customer base, okay?
The second reason is a price increase and related to this decrease in the number of new gross adds, okay? And the third one is the demographic dynamics across Ukraine. These are the 3 main reasons of the overall active SIMs decline in Ukraine, okay, that we are facing as much as our competitors. Okay. And then I will ask Taner to take the first one.
Yes. For the EBITDA half 2 expectation in the half 1, you know that the Uklon impact is directly year-over-year, I mean, 3 months in 2025 and 6 months in '26. So I mean, in the first half, we directly had relatively higher, I mean, inorganic growth coming from Uklon.
But at the second half of the year, in terms of EBITDA, the apple-to-apple, I mean, comparison and growth for the Uklon side. This is one of the major thing that we should underline. And also, we have, I mean, to sum up Kyivstar TV and also gross up, we directly change our methodology in the -- starting from September 2025, directly affect our, I mean, growth rate in the second half of the year.
Our next question comes from Ahmed Mostafa with Inam.
I have a question. How should we think about the earnings contribution and economic hedge from the expanded solar portfolio?
Ahmed, I couldn't quite hear you. Could you repeat that, please?
Yes, sure. I was asking, how should we think about the earnings contribution and economic hedge from the expanded solar portfolio?
Okay. Solar portfolio. So let me start with the hedge, okay? So our average annual price is around -- let me calculate in my mind, but it is around EUR 0.20 per kilowatt, okay? With the current existing production, we sell to the state at around EUR 0.11, EUR 0.12. So you can imagine that at least 30% of our demand is being hedged at this level, okay? And this is a way for us how we can at least manage the inflation.
For us, energy cost is the biggest single item in our operational expense and the fastest-growing one, okay? And for us, it's a clear way how we can hedge. This is not a limited -- we want to develop, okay? We see that we can actually go into the further elements of the energy business with the certain investments into the BESS, okay? So -- and this is mainly focused on our own infrastructure, but this will let us to further hedge our energy pricing, okay?
And the third one, with the current demand and current supply, we can consider ourselves with the certain investments into the metering and to play a quite significant role as a potential trader on this market. And this will be an extra step how we can manage the future tariff in the most efficient way. And these are 3 elements that we are very much focused from the perspective of the overall operational efficiency improvement.
And I will further that with these acquisition green energy investments, we directly hedge our, I mean, consumption. And also, we have a quite high EBITDA margin as well in terms of the contribution to our financials.
We have completed our queue of online questions, but I know there may be some questions still in the room with the live audience. Would anyone like to ask one last question before we wrap up? Okay, we do have one. And if there are any more afterward, please come speak with us.
Matt Chesler from FNK. If we can double-click on Kyivstar TV for a moment. With exclusive rights for relevant content or even the bundling of mobile and broadband, how do you see the business developing over the medium and longer term? Maybe a sub-question on that would be with regards to content. What would the prospects for profitability trend become?
Let me try to explain. So we see the benefits of the live sport events. It was our first experience, and it definitely paid back, okay? The result is better than our expectations, okay? So I see the full formula of success. We need to be competitive with the share of key sport events.
So just to attract new audience to the application, okay? We should be competitive in the overall content with a certain focus on the Ukrainian content, and this is part of our strategy. We are, during the last years, have exclusive rights for the major, let's say, produced-in-Ukraine content, especially series and films, okay?
And the third one, we should provide the best-in-class experience for the customer journey with advice mechanism, with AI embedded in our service, with the certain gaming elements in our service. So this is the overall winning formula, okay?
So we are very much dependent on the synergies between our telco business and entertainment business. And I think that the next frontier for us is to go outside from the Kyivstar perimeter, okay, with the proposal to the other mobile operators', let's say, subscribers. Yes.
Thank you. I believe we are out of time. So we'd like to again say thank you to everyone who's joined us today, both those of you online and those of us who are able to join us here in New York. And we'll be looking forward to speaking with you a number of times coming soon, but especially at our next quarterly results and at our November 16 Capital Markets Day. Thank you very much again.
Kyivstar Group — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Kyivstar Group — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Hello, and welcome to Kyivstar's 1Q '26 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. [Operator Instructions]
Cole Akeson, you may begin.
Thank you. Good afternoon, and good morning. Thank you all for joining us to discuss Kyivstar Group's or Kyivstar's first quarter results. I am Cole Akeson, Group Director for Kyivstar Investor Relations. Joining me today are Kaan Terzioglu, Chairman of the Board; Oleksandr Komarov, the CEO; Boris Dolgushin, our CFO; and Anand Ramachandran, Chief Corporate Development Officer or VEON. Oleksandr will begin with strategic and operational highlights followed by Boris with a review of our financial performance. We will then open the line for questions.
Before we begin, please note that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties. Further details are available in our SEC filings including our Form 20-F filed March 16, 2026. Our earnings release and presentation are available on our Investor Relations website.
With that, I'll hand over to Oleksandr.
Thank you, Cole. Hello, everyone. We started 2026 with strong execution. Our telecom core is resilient, our digital ecosystem is scaling, the two businesses fit each other. Let me start with the numbers.
Revenue reached $323 million. This is an increase of nearly 27% year-over-year. EBITDA grew more than 23% to $173 million. We focus on cash generation. Equity free cash flow grew almost 32% to $87 million for the quarter. Second, our digital transformation. Digital revenue more than tripled year-on-year, reaching almost 21% of our total revenue in first quarter 2026. This is an increase of more than 5 percentage points quarter-on-quarter and more than 13 percentage points from a year ago. Our platforms have scale. We now serve more than 28 million non-unique digital customers, a number now larger than our mobile subscriber base. We also streamlined our [ import in ] this quarter integrating identity services into our digital enterprise vertical to provide a clearer and more consistent view of performance. Identity services are undergoing a transition away from traditional A2P messaging to [indiscernible] API-based platforms becoming more digital than traditional analog mobile. We also moved to reporting customers across service lines on 3-month active basis to provide better comparability between lines and [indiscernible]. Accordingly, we provide reclassified numbers for past years to ensure comparability and maximum visibility.
Third, our multiplay strategy. Multiplay customers use voice, data and at least one of our apps. We generate more revenue individually and are less likely to [ churn ]. Multiplay customers grew 31.6% to 8.1 million. They now make up nearly 40% of our active mobile base. This engagement drives the top line Mobile ARPU rose 14.1% year-on-year to $3.80.
Finally, our strategic investments. In February, we consolidated Tabletki. Tabletki is Ukraine's leading online health care marketplace and processed $258 million in gross merchandise value over the two months of consolidation for the quarter. We expanded our cooperation with SpaceX to resell Starlink Internet to enterprise customers. Over 5 million customers already use our Direct to Cell messaging services and we will launch light data later this year.
As for our first quarter financials, telecom revenue grew 8% to $256 million, Customers are moving to 4G and using more data. Digital revenue grew 257% to $67 million. The consolidations of Uklon and Tabletki drove this surge. Our other digital products also grew organically.
Starting from this quarter, we are splitting our EBITDA disclosure to show digital separately from telco and infrastructure. This better clarifies the development of their respective verticals. Total EBITDA rose more than 23% to $173 million. Our telco and Infrastructure core generated $144 million in EBITDA, resulting in a 56% margin. Our digital platforms generated $29 million in EBITDA producing a nearly 43% margin. Net profit reached $85 million, earnings per share was $0.37. We invested $67 million in capital expenditure. Our CapEx intensity was 20.9% for the quarter, which generated $161 million in operating cash flow. Equity free cash flow grew 32% to $87 million. Cash generation funds our growth. Our cash position remained strong at $353 million.
Now let's look at the mobile business, where we serve 22 million customers. Our annualized churn rate was 16% for the quarter. We remain the country's clear market leader. Mobile ARPU grew 14% to $3.80. Customers are moving to 4G and using more data. Data consumption grew 31% to almost 15 gigabytes per user monthly. Nearly 70% of our mobile base is now on 4G. Our fixed broadband base grew almost 12% to move to the 1.2 million customers. This includes 52,000 new users from our recent SHTORM acquisition. Broadband and digital entertainment work closely together. Today, nearly 46% of our broadband users also subscribed to Kyivstar TV.
Gross sales and synergies bring us back to the core of our digital growth strategy, multiplay. Multiplay customers grew almost 32% year-over-year to $8.1 million. They now make up nearly 40% of our active mobile customer base. They also generate higher revenue. The average multiplay customer generates $5.30 in a [ multi ] ARPU. This is nearly 40% more than the average mobile customer. They spend more now in digital [indiscernible] but they also spend more on connectivity.
Let's look closer to our digital revenue. Digital revenue grew by 2.6x to $67 million. It now makes up almost 21% of total revenue. Three points about this performance. First, strategic acquisitions enhance our scale. The consolidations of Uklon and Tabletki drove the bulk of this quarter's surge. That said, the group is also broad-based. We see momentum across all verticals, Uklon, [ Helsi ], Tabletki, Kyivstar TV and the digital enterprise business. Third, we have a structural cost advantage, our telecom customer base provides low acquisition costs our Multiplay bundles act as an optimized distribution model. This synergy allows us to scale platforms, profitability and maintain strong unit economics.
Moving to Uklon, our mobility platform. In the first quarter, Uklon generated nearly $33 million in revenue and more than $12 million in EBITDA. This reflects both a scaled business in Ukraine and a growing business in Uzbekistan. The platform process nearly 44 million rides and 1.5 million deliveries, the latter reflecting an almost 10% rise quarter-on-quarter. Active customers rose to more than 5 million for the quarter. We are expanding the product range. Customers can now book intercity bus tickets directly in the new Uklon Travel. We continue to explore new ways to develop Uklon further as a comprehensive one-stop mobility platform.
Our digital enterprise business is [ great gain ] in scale with more than $16 million in revenue and 9% increase year-over-year. We managed 2,200 active B2B contracts up 31% year-on-year. Big Data and AI drove the majority of this quarter's growth. The segment's revenue grew 75% to $4.4 million. Cloud revenue grew 42% to $2.3 million. ADWISOR, our self-service advertising platform primarily focused on small- and medium-sized businesses expanding to over 4,000 registered clients. The division also contains [ Kyivstar ], which binds our ecosystem together and is responsible for some of our most cutting edge work. An example is our work in cooperation with the Ukrainian government and leading international partners to produce our sovereign LLM which is trained exclusively on Ukrainian language data to meet the unique needs of Ukrainian clients.
Moving to entertainment, Kyivstar TV remains the largest media stream service in Ukraine. Revenue grew 390% year-over-year to $10.5 million. Last year's shift to gross revenue recognition is complemented by strong organic momentum spurred by two factors: first, customer expansion and engagement. Our customer base reached a new record at more than million. As I mentioned earlier, more than 46% of our fixed broadband base now subscribes to our TV platform. Second, our original content continues to inspire engagement, new crime drama, Tykha Nava is the most watched title in the platform's history. Exclusive Ukrainian content attracts new customers and strengthened our ecosystem. We are looking forward to soon being exclusive Ukrainian broadcaster of an upcoming boxing match featuring world heavyweight champion and proud Ukrainian, Oleksandr Usyk.
On the health care, Helsi is Ukraine's leading health base platform. We serve 4.9 million active digital customers in Q1. Patients booked 2.4 million appointments through the platform. We are [indiscernible] the platform paid services. Customers paying the premium offerings increased by more than half quarter-on-quarter to reach more than 87,000. Revenue grew nearly 32% year-over-year to more than $2 million. Helsi powers appointment scheduling, prescriptions and health records, including integration with Ukraine State Health System. The platform makes care easier and faster to [indiscernible] and win-win for patients and lookers alike. Customers are upgrading for a range of advanced health insights. Our healthy superpowered telecom bundle helps drive these conversions. Helsi highlights our commitment to corporate social responsibilities and ESG. We are expanding access to digital health care for Ukrainians during the war time.
Then we have Tabletki, the leading online health care marketplace. We consolidated this business in February. In just two months, the platform contributed more than $5 million in revenue and more than $4 million in EBITDA. Customer volume is strong. The platform facilitated 15.3 million average monthly bookings in the first two months of the year. At the same period, gross merchandise value reached $258 million. We continue to work on integrating Tabletki with Helsi and ultimately with Uklon's delivery network. We expect these synergies to drive deeper engagement across our digital customer base.
All these parts come together in our growth strategy. We intend our core productivity business to maintain market leadership. We focus on retaining a high-quality customer base and driving technological innovation. For example, over 5 million customers use our Direct to Cell satellite messaging, and we expect to launch live data later this year. In fixed broadband, we aim to expand market share. We plan to drive this expansion through both for guiding growth and targeted acquisitions. This market brings entire household into our ecosystem, mutually reinforced in the mobile and digital businesses. Third, our digital ecosystem. We anticipate scaling our digital platforms through organic momentum and strategic acquisitions. Our core strategy is to increase Multiplay adoption and different daily engagement across our customer base.
We continue to progress our strategies through both organic and inorganic growth. Most recently, we are now -- the expansion of our cooperation with SpaceX to include [ that ] in high-speed internet services to Ukrainian businesses and public institutions allowing us to provide B2C and [ B2B ] customers have full feature and connectivity stack within Kyivstar's packages.
Now Boris will tell us more about the financials.
Thank you, Ms. Oleksandr. Total revenue reached $323 million in the first quarter, an increase of nearly 27% year-over-year. This reflects $14 billion [ treatment ] in revenue, a 31% increase. EBITDA grew more than 23% to $173 million based on a 29% gain to [ 7.5 billion ]. As discussed, our telecom margin expanded to more than 56% while our digital platforms have created nearly a 43% margin. This [ page 3 ] reflects our strategy. We generate strong cash flow from our core network that partially goes to fund the rapid scaling of our digital ecosystem. Capital allocation remains disciplined. CapEx [indiscernible] $67 million, which [ in the 21% of credit ]. A significant portion of this capital [indiscernible] was network resilience during the war. Despite the critical investments, our cash conversion remains strong. Equity free cash flow after leases and licenses grew 32% to $87 million.
Turning now to [indiscernible]. We ended the first quarter with $353 million in cash and deposits. The sequential increase reflects our capital allocation to fund Tabletki and SHTORM acquisitions. Gross debt, excluding leases, is $94 million. We carry immaterial extend debt mostly on the parent company deal. These regularities totaled $393 million. These arise from our Tower agreements with Ukrainian tower company and are fully recognized under IFRS 6. Excluding these lease liabilities, our net cash position is $259 million.
Let me now hand the call back to Oleksandr.
Thank you, Boris. Looking further ahead, we arrive our full year outlook for 2026 on the mix of the ongoing strong execution and external influences that have been less turbulent than assumed in our base case. In [indiscernible], we expect revenue to grow 18% to 21% and EBITDA to grow 14% to 17%. On our average exchange rate assumption of UAH 45.5 to the dollar, we expect revenue to grow 11% to 14% in U.S. dollars and EBITDA 7% to 10%. While this is an upgrade to our previous guidance, it represents moderation from our first quarter growth rate due [ laterally ] other base effects. This anticipates a comparison base that will not only include the immediate aftermath of the 2023 cyberattack, a weaker spot exchange rate and the lapping of the Uklon consolidation. We plan to allocate capital efficiency with CapEx intensity at the range of 21% to 24% of revenue for the year. We intend to continue targeted investments in network quality and energy resilience while normalizing from our elevated 2025 investment cycle.
The ramp up. We are delivering double-digit growth across segments, driven by our digital momentum and strong execution. Despite external volatility, our business remains resilient, and our strong cash generation continues to fund our expansion. We think these trends would look impressive for any company, let alone one operation in a warzone and hope you agree with us. Thank you for your support. We can now open for the line for Q&A.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Max Findlay with Rothschild & Co.
2. Question Answer
Hello all. Congratulations on the impressive set of results and the upgrades. In mobile, there were 400,000 subscription losses in Q1, which was higher than Q1 last year. It's sometimes hard to discern what contributes to net losses. And it would be useful to understand how much of this is secondary SIMs dropping off versus primary SIM loss and what [ sites ] do you have of how net adds will develop throughout the year?
And then secondly, sticking to mobile. Mobile ARPU growth was very impressive in Q1. I guess there are a few things going on here with the loss of roaming revenues and the drop of low ARPU secondary SIM subs. So you're able to kind of quantify what is driving mobile ARPU growth, that would be very useful.
Okay. Let me start with the first question. So this -- Kyivstar's customer base decline is actually the reflection of the overall market plan. So this trend is very much driven by a few factors. The first factor is a decline in the number of double [ SIMers ] across the market. The second factor is the decline in the new gross adds because of a certain [ shelf ] price increase, okay? And the third factor is overall demographic situation in Ukraine. It's a bit difficult to quantify, but the biggest factor is actually double [ SIMers ] which is very much situational and driven by very heavy blackouts we faced during the December, January this year, okay?
Let me also draw your attention to one simple fact that according to the national regulation statistics, okay? So Kyivstar is maintaining subscriber market share year-on-year. We grew 0.1% in 2025 versus 2024, okay, and we are relatively stable for the last years with around 47-plus percent subscriber market share. Okay.
And your second question is forgive me, just remind me...
Mobile ARPU.
Okay. And the drivers for mobile ARPU, there are two main drivers for mobile ARPU. The first one is growing data consumption. Despite the war, despite the overall decline in an active number of the SIM cards, okay? So we are -- our customers are consuming more and more data. We observed a 30% increase year-on-year. And the second one is actually disciplined pricing that is actually focused to address inflation in Ukraine, okay? So -- and potential GDP growth. So we already declared that our kind of objective to maintain the mobile [indiscernible] to business growth and the low double digit, it is very much driven by inflation and growing construction of data services.
Our next question comes from [indiscernible] with Barclays.
Congratulations on the results. And a question from me on the digital segment. So you had a very strong growth in the quarter. So just trying to understand on the Kyivstar TV and its launch. So the numbers were quite strong, similar to the 4Q. So what are the factors that are driving this? So just trying to understand, are there any seasonality in them? Or like how should we think of the growth for these two segments in the coming quarters?
Let me take it one by one, okay, So the Uklon growth is actually driven by 3 major factors. Okay. The first one is a growing number of riders. The second one is a growing number of rides per one rider. And the third one is actually pricing, which was very much driven by energy crisis, global energy crisis and the growing prices for the fuel and gas. These are 3 major factors that affect Uklon's performance, okay? We also observed a certain market share increase in the ride-hailing business, but this was also supported by the growing -- much faster growing delivery base.
In Kyivstar TV, we observed a certain, let's say, nonorganic growth very much driven by the 3P [ penetration ], okay? So our 3P offer is growing quite significantly, which is driving our Kyivstar TV business growth, which was extremely successfully supported by [indiscernible] at the beginning of the year. You are right, it is a certain seasonality incorporated in the Q1 results, okay? Because normally, this winter time and new year eve time is actually a high season for the inter payment business okay? But the main growth was very much driven by the overall growing number of active customers and originals, okay? Tykha Nava is our own, let's say, originals, demonstrated the record-high numbers of unique watchers, okay, since the launch of the platform. And we do hold and expect that both [indiscernible] will be another [indiscernible] for the further growth.
Our next question comes from Jesse Sobelson with BTIG.
Can you help us think about the Starlink indirect to sell service. Is it a defensive coverage and resilience feature that protects users in ARPU or a stand-alone revenue line that could enable further monetization? I see there's 5 million users here, but I'm very curious on exactly how to think about that part of your business.
Let me start with a kind of segment page. Right now, we provide only one service based on Direct to Cell [ knowledge ] and services, SMS. Okay, we decided for ourselves that taking into account the war situation and that overall humanitarian risk and local connectivity risk that we will provide these for every Ukraine with a Kyivstar SIM card for free. Okay. And this -- what you see as a reflection in our statistics. So more than 5 million Kyivstar customers use this service since the launch in November 2025 and they sent and receive more than 8 million messengers through the satellite technology. In the mid of the year, we are going -- actually second half of the year, we are going to introduce a light data services based on the Direct to Cell technology, okay? And this light data will [ add ] -- let us to use certain applications that will be adapted to the satellite technology across the whole territory of Ukraine, okay? And our main focus to provide this feature to the messengers, to the financial applications and to the state-owned applications like VEON, okay, and since this, we are planning a direct monetization of the Direct to Cell services. And we just recently signed a resell agreement for the Starlink services. Kyivstar will be the first reseller of the Starlink services in Ukraine taken in mind that Ukraine is one of the biggest markets, okay, for the Starlink services across the globe.
Great. Also, I want to just follow up real quick on the M&A front and the environment there, the cash that you have. Can you just elaborate on maybe where valuations are in the space? And if there's any particular verticals within Ukraine that you're currently focused on researching for further expansion?
We are quite open with our nonorganic development strategy. We have 3 main priorities, okay, to invest non-organically in our core business, and this is mainly infrastructure and fixed broadband providers, and you already [ see ] a couple of examples of acquisition of SHTORM, 50,000 customers. Our second priority is to facilitate and accelerate our transformation from that [ sale ] of service provider to the digital service provider with the telco license through organic development like Kyivstar TV and non organic acquisitions like Uklon okay? And the third priority is alternative energy, okay? So it is very much driven by the current energy situation in Ukraine as a growing electricity pricing. We see this had a well thought investment that will let us not only diversify the supply of the energy to our infrastructure, but also to ensure a certain batch of the growing energy prices, okay, so in our core business. These are 3 main priorities for our non-organic M&A strategy.
Our next question comes from Matthew Harrigan with Benchmark StoneX.
Great. I have one down in the weeds question and then one broad conceptual question. On the cybersecurity 'side, clearly, Russian military intelligence, fancy very cozy there, haven't gotten any less active. The attack last year was massively disruptive. I mean do you feel like you've made incredible progress in the vulnerabilities? Are the Russians laying off? And are you dealing very much if AI and cybersecurity in your enterprise offerings as well because clearly, you have some necessary competencies in-house.
Let me start with a very brief description. What we faced at the end of 2023 was not a kind of hacker's attack. It was one of the biggest act like the cybersecurity war and terrorism in the world, okay? So -- and yes, you are right, we are one of the probably primary targets, okay? So from the Russian perspective. But at the same time, I feel ourselves really confident in our ability to protect Kyivstar, Kyivstar infrastructure and Kyivstar customers from the cybersecurity threats. Okay. We invested a lot since the incident. We have hired the biggest global consultants. And right now, I think that we are much better protected than we used to be in 2023 okay, with the support of the global companies like Microsoft, Cisco and others, okay? We are using probably one of the most advanced system in the world very heavily supported by AI monitoring and threat recognition system. So these are our two major factors of our investments instead of one perimeter, create multiple perimeters inside our infrastructure and automate this perimeter with a sea of AI platforms as much as possible in order to ensure any recognition of any potential treat.
And I guess the second question, I think it's instructive to look at your mobile and digital pricing relative to some of the Eastern European markets and even Africa. And certainly, you've got more growth potential than just about any market maybe outside of Africa and you're at some pretty substantial discounts. I remember years ago, people -- the Holy Grail for Mexico was getting Mexican advertising CPMs at the level of Brazil, and it finally happened, but it took about 50 years. And I think consumers just kind of get acclimated at certain pricing levels, it's hard to get things leveled on a global market scale. But what are your strategies for putting the pricing forward when you get a more normal environment, maybe getting close to some comparable markets in Europe and other areas.
I think we are doing a very good job in disciplined pricing right now okay? So I joined Kyivstar in 2018, and it was a market with an average ARPU below USD 1 okay? And despite the work, despite quite difficult economic situation, we, from my perspective, we are able to demonstrate our ability to grow ARPU year-on-year, not only in the local currency but also in the reported currency. And this is our vision. So right now, Ukraine has one of the lowest, actually lowest Eastern European ARPU, which is not in line with the size of the Ukrainian economy, okay? And my own perspective that in the reasonable future, Ukraine should reach at least the lowest Eastern European ARPU, that is for the time being, for example, in Romania, that is above USD 7 per month.
Our next question comes from Ali [indiscernible] with Inam.
So I just had one question. We saw this quarter that Tabletki had an especially high EBITDA margin of approximately 85%. Do you think this margin is sustainable in the longer run?
Yes. So Ali, thank you for the questions. So let me take this. So we have, as an operator, demonstrated I think one of the best [indiscernible] worldwide based on the GSMA analytics. So definitely, as you know, we are moving more and more towards digital business. So this quarter, the first time I think we disclosed the margin of the digital business, which we see quite decent. So we try to protect our marginality of the core business despite all the externalities that impact our performance. At the same time, you need to assume that the more we penetrate into the digital business, so while the [indiscernible] might be lower so it adds to the absolute margin and the absolute net income and this business is incomparable in terms of CapEx capacity. So basically, the CapEx there is just utilization of the labor of the development stuff and in terms of cash conversion, it may result in even better cash conversion. So I would propose to you both on the marginality, but also our cash conversion [indiscernible].
Let me add a bit. I considered our digital margin not a [indiscernible] I think that we are running a big digital business fast growing with the marginality higher than 40%. And I think this is to some percent, unprecedented.
Our next question comes from [ Vincent Fernando ] with [indiscernible].
I wanted to touch on the cloud and big data side of your digital enterprise business. So obviously, with the conflict, I imagine it roughly changes what a data center means in Ukraine. You probably want to be distributed, you have Brazilian architecture. That's probably more valuable than being like a centralized large hyperscaler. But -- so how is Kyivstar thinking about the data center opportunity, given we have that nationwide network footprint, you have some energy independence assets like [indiscernible] and the sovereign cloud positioning. So what comes with being -- Ukraine is [indiscernible] provider, what does the addressable market look like? And how might it be different than other markets because like in that there's kind of risk of being too centralized?
We see the cloud business is quite promising. So far, our main business is resale of Microsoft primarily and the bit of Amazon. But our own consideration that we -- in order to be competitive cloud service provider, we need to be a multi-service provider, multi-cloud service provider. We just recently launched our own cloud business in Ukraine, our own data center, we start to commercialize at the end of 2025, okay? But we are looking for a way how to accelerate it in organic and nonorganic way. To some extent, I'm absolutely sure that expansion after the war and with a certain recovery, okay? And with a certain, let's say, return to a severity, Okay, it will be a very, very fast-growing business stream and we want to be prepared. We want to be prepared from the [ legal ] service perspective from the market share perspective and available competencies in place. So this is quite essential part of our business development.
Our next question comes from [ Adrian Kandi ] with [ Emerging & Frontier Capital LLP ].
My question involves -- my first question revolves around digital top line. If I back out to Tabletki and Uklon and I look at it's sort of an organic growth basis year-on-year, it looks to be very, very high, the growth rate. I'm just wondering if you might sort of compare and contrast the organic growth opportunity in your digital portfolio versus the new acquisitions, do you think -- and it would be great if there's some sort of pro forma view on how Uklon is growing and Tabletki is growing year-on-year? That's my first question.
My follow-on question comes back to the capital expenditure of $66 million. I would assume that's overwhelmingly in the telecom business and relative to telecom revenues, that's obviously sustainably -- remains quite high, well above sort of 21%. How much of that is really network resilience? How much of that is things like the 5G [ test bed ]? And given that really sort of 5G subs are now above 70% of your total -- sorry, 4G subs, sorry, are 70% of your sub base penetration, what is sort of the -- given that older people tend not to be on data as much, what is sort of the road map for boosting data through? And how much do you think you're eventually a year or two out, will your network be in 5G given that the government has a testing policy there?
Okay. I will ask Boris to answer the first question and then I will take a second one. So Boris could you please address these organic growth versus nonorganic of the digital revenue stream?
Yes. Adrian, thank you for the question. So as we discussed in the previous call, so even if you exclude Uklon and Tabletki impacts, we have grown about 60% year-on-year. This growth is supported primarily by the existing streams and to our digital enterprise solution and the TV, which, as Oleksandr was explaining, is growing due to the unique content quite aggressively. So it's in line with our promise and to grow the digital business at the high double digit so triple digit and we are executing this.
How long do you think that's sustainable for? That sort of super normal growth rate.
So that's kind of forward-looking statement, to be honest. [indiscernible] so we are a bit careful and limited by the current route in front for us. So -- but you can make this trend by yourself. We were declaring our, let's say, organic growth rate 2025. Organic growth rate in our presentation, Boris just said [indiscernible] at the beginning of 2026 and I think that you can make your simulation quite easily.
If I may. To make our legal team slightly more comfortable, the raw numbers are [indiscernible] Slide 7.
Coming back to CapEx. Of course, we do not consider CapEx higher than 20% as a normal month. So it is definitely elevated by necessity to invest in the resilience okay? And around [ 50% -- 15% ] of our CapEx is actually streamlined into the different resilience projects, okay? But let me emphasize that quite a big share of our CapEx is focused on the modernization and strengthening our Helsi network. We have accelerated 3G [indiscernible] this year is the last year of 3G technology for Kyivstar in Ukraine, okay? We want to strengthen our technological leadership versus the competition. okay? We are very close to finalize our license -- 4G-driven license obligation with a population coverage almost 97% with all the major roles powered by the LTE technologies okay? And my own perspective that this will be the main technological vehicle of mobile telecom for the next probably 5, 7 years. We do not expect 5G to be really introduced in Ukraine until end of the war. So the most probable scenario is something like 12 months after the war, and that's why we are considering our investments in LTE technology as a strategic part. And by the way, this is very much confirmed by the [indiscernible], the external monitoring company that actually awarded Kyivstar with all 3 available [ cohorts ], the biggest network by coverage, the fastest network by speed and the best plan from the customer experience perspective.
Just one final question on -- I wasn't aware of the sunset on 3G, but is that going -- the 30% of your base is not on 4G right now. I mean, is there a device limitation there? Are these old folks without a smartphone? And is that going to -- when you migrate them off, is that going to have an impact?
It's a good question, but to be fair, 4G smartphone's penetration is not an issue in Ukraine, Okay, so as I mentioned at the beginning, the Ukraine market still has a relatively high penetration of double [ SIMers ], okay? So people using different SIM cards for the different purposes, okay? So -- and somehow, I think that the 70% LTE penetration according to the global benchmark is a very healthy level despite the fact that 4G was introduced in Ukraine with a certain delay.
Our next question comes from [ Tim Savageaux ] with Northland Capital Markets.
Congrats on the Tabletki deal as well. Looks like based on those financials, we should be looking for more of those. And my question is on organic growth as well, except sort of with an EBITDA focus. And I don't know to what extent Tabletki was contemplated in your previous guidance increase last quarter for '26 or this one but it seems like there's some offsets on the cost side where we might expect a greater increase in EBITDA. You talked about energy costs before. It does look like the organic EBITDA growth rate for the company is kind of low single digit implied in '26. So am I getting that right? And is there some offset on the cost factor or on the cost front that's kind of the headwinds in your strategic growth or inorganic growth?
I think I will let Boris to answer this question, okay? So Boris, please.
Yes. [ In thinking ] to the question, I think when we look at this Q1. So if [indiscernible] organic growth without, as you said [indiscernible] for Tabletki and Uklon is positioned because we didn't have Uklon consolidated in 2025. So if you look at this, we are at 16%, I'm talking organic terms I don't put in dollars here because we also have definitely [ the translation ] impact on our numbers. So we are about 16% in terms of gross revenue and EBITDA growth year-over-year. So we are continuing this trend for the rest of 2026. So we gave the guidance of 18% to 21% in revenue, 14.17% in EBITDA which is in line with this guidance. And despite the fact that we do have some factors pressing negatively [indiscernible] such as [indiscernible] prices as you mentioned, or the euro regulation in production, which is quite a significant impact for 2026. As you can see, we are trying to offset them both in terms of the telco growth and in terms of the digital growth that we just discussed.
Okay. Great. And then to follow up, I think you've seen a pretty notable uptick in multi-play subscribers over the last two quarters, in particular, would you attribute that to bringing in some of the new digital services in terms of acquisition and in terms of maybe those subscribers already having that service? And I know -- and this would be a tough but whether you expect that multiplay trend to continue? Or what exactly you would attribute this uptick we've seen really in the last couple of quarters in multiplay?
I will not answer on trend, but this is one of our ultimate objective to grow number of multiplay and multiplay penetration into our customer base. What you see as a result of 3 major factors. The first one is our guiding growth of the multiplay penetration. Every new gross app with a certain profitability being converted into the Multiplay. On the shelf right now, we do not propose mobile standalone. Our basic value proposition consists of mobile fixed and Kyivstar TV plus extra services provided in a form of superpowers, how customers can customize their own value proposition with certain services provided by the ecosystem. As one of the example, Helsi subscription, okay? And at the same time, of course, the second major factor is nonorganic, okay, driven by the acquisitions of the business like Tabletki. And the third one is actually seasonality. It's a certain seasonality in Multiplay, mainly driven by the entertainment business, okay? And in certain periods of activity, for example, Uklon certain seasonality, Kyivstar TV has certain seasonality. So these are 3 major factors that are actually affecting our quarterly results with an overall trend to grow number of multiplay customers.
Our next question comes from [ Nicholas Paton ] with Edison Group.
Thank you very much for the additional information on the digital business, and I guess it's actually very, very useful to see the granularity. We had a very interesting and instructive conversation on the full year VEON call regarding capital returns for the various businesses. And I'm interested in the difference between your various digital businesses because clearly, some of them are pure digital, whereas Uklon, which is half of your revenues in digital, is actually a relatively physical business with a sophisticated digital front end. So when you look at the capital returns going forward, how do you place Uklon versus the other digital businesses and versus the traditional telecom business?
I'm not sure that -- so that you have a right approach to our Uklon business. So what we are running in Ukraine is a ride hailing platform. Platform that [ led ] riders to find driver, okay, so for the transportation. So for the [ time being ], Uklon is a pure light asset business and it's a pure digital service. okay? So from this perspective, so I think that all the businesses are actually demonstrating a quite [ healthy originality ] with the top one demonstrated by Tabletki and with an excellent marginality demonstrated by Uklon, which is actually at a lower end, but close to [indiscernible] Okay. But it is close to 40%, sorry, [indiscernible].
[ Nicholas ], since you're asking about like return on capital employed, definitely with the digital businesses such as Uklon without adding any kind of heavy aspects, so this will be way higher versus what you see in our traditional telecom business.
But clearly, Nicholas for the future, if you think about the ride hailing business, and if you think about driver's cars or Kyivstar businesses which are not having the drivers, I think the future of this business will become more, I think, asset heavy as we see, but it's not the issue of today, of course. But 3 years out, I think driverless car will be actually a CapEx heavy business, more CapEx heavy business.
If you take a look at what Uklon is directly announcing some of the [ tech fares ], they're doing some very interesting work on the expertise that they're building.
Our next question comes from [ Vincent Fernando ] with [indiscernible].
I just want to touch back on the Starlink reseller agreement. That's for Ukrainian businesses and public institutions, is that correct? And is that -- is it exclusive to Kyivstar in Ukraine? And how should we think about the revenue model? Pure margin on resales and bundled into B2B connectivity? Just curious, what's the structure of that?
Yes, absolutely right. So we will be focused on the B2B and B2G market with the resale, okay? The income model is structured around certain markup on equipment and traffic with the potential to convert this model into the data pool model that will open new opportunities, okay, based on the wholesale relation to [ Starlink ].
Got it. Is there any exclusivity in the agreement?
No, there's no exclusivity, okay? But so far, we are the only one reseller -- official reseller of Starlink services in Ukraine.
I know it's maybe only been about a week, are you seeing kind of -- what kind of customer [ ramp ] are you seeing or maybe in the early phase to now? And are you being Marketing or marketed?
[indiscernible] the stage, market -- B2B market is relatively developed, but being in a B2B organization right now, you should order the Starlink device through your employee and the compensate, okay, through the salary. You are not able, like a bit of your organization, okay, to order the service directly from the Starlink. So we will be the first -- only one official representative of Starlink in Ukraine.
Our last question comes from Ahmed Mostafa with Inam.
One question for me. You have made several acquisition in more than roughly 18 months. So what synergies are you seeing? And how do you think about integration complexity across [indiscernible]?
We have two types of synergies. The first one is operational synergies that are, to some extent, already extract and reflected in a high marginality of our digital business. The second layer of synergies is a kind of customer synergies, and they are very much reflected into the growing penetration of Multiplay services, combination of telecom services with a different digital services in a unique competitive value proposition in a form of bundles, okay? But on the top of this, we are right now focused on developing our vision of the holistic ecosystem, okay, over all [indiscernible] in Ukraine. So these are 3 major synergies, okay, that we are trying to extract and to convert into the customer and shareholder value.
Yes. What we are doing right now, we are focused on some kind of, let's say, [ non regret ] moves. One of them is a single ID across the whole [indiscernible] ecosystem, okay, in order to have proper identification mechanism in order to streamline customer journey and to have better visibility of the customer base.
We have no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to call Cole Akeson for closing remarks.
Well, we'll keep this very brief. Thank you, as always, for your interest in Kyivstar. We are proud to have presented another strong quarter, and we look forward to speaking to you in the following quarter. Thank you again.
Kyivstar Group — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
Kyivstar Group — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Hello, and welcome to Kyivstar's FY '25 and 4Q '25 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. Cole Akeson, you may begin.
Thank you. Good morning, and good afternoon. Thank you for joining us to discuss Kyivstar Group's or Kyivstar's results for the quarter and year ending December 31, 2025. I am Cole Akeson, Group Director for the Kyivstar Investor Relations team. Please allow me to introduce our senior management in the room today: Mr. Kaan Terzioglu, Chairman of the Board; Mr. Oleksandr Komarov, our CEO and President; Mr. Boris Dolgushin, our CFO; and Mr. Anand Ramachandran, Chief Corporate Development Officer for VEON. Today's presentation will begin with Oleksandr detailing the key highlights and business updates as well as remarks on the financial results from Boris. We will then open the line for your questions.
Before we begin, -- next slide, please. Thank you. Please note that today's presentation may include forward-looking statements that involve certain risks and uncertainties. These statements relate to the company's expected performance, 2026 guidance and outlook, market developments, operational and network investments, and the company's ability to realize its targets and initiatives, among other things. Actual results may differ materially due to risks detailed in the Risk Factors section of our final prospectus filed with the SEC on January 30, 2026, as such prospectus may be amended or supplemented from time to time.
The earnings release and presentation, including reconciliations of non-IFRS measures are available on our Investor Relations website.
With that, let me hand over to Oleksandr.
Thank you, Cole. Good afternoon, and good morning. Today, we are excited to host our first annual earnings call as a U.S.-listed company. We are proud that the fourth quarter and full year of 2025 not only produced robust financial results but also clear strategic progress. Our connectivity and digital services continue to support one another's growth, producing high multiplay and 4G penetration, rising data consumption, and revenue growth across every vertical and brand. Let me start with the headline numbers.
For the full year, total revenue grew 26% year-over-year in U.S. dollars or 30% in hryvnia. Growth accelerated as we closed the year with fourth quarter revenue up 28% in dollars. Full year EBITDA grew 26% in dollars and 30% in hryvnia. Both revenue and EBITDA outperformed our full year outlook from last November by roughly 4 percentage points in dollar terms. We continue to generate healthy cash flow, delivering $558 million in net cash flow from operating activities for the year.
Secondly, let's discuss our digital services. For the full year, digital revenue increased 4.7x in dollar terms. Momentum continued to accelerate as we closed the year, with fourth quarter digital revenue rising 6x year-over-year. As a result, digital services now contribute nearly 16% of our total revenue, up 4 percentage points from the previous quarter. Expanding our digital ecosystem remains central to our strategy. This is reflected in the roughly 42% year-on-year rise in our total digital monthly active users, which have now surpassed 15 million.
Thirdly, our growing suite of services continues to expand Kyivstar's role in our customers' daily lives. Multiplay customers, those who use voice, data and at least one of our apps, monthly reached 7.3 million in the fourth quarter or 35% of our mobile customers. These cross-sales lift engagement, strengthen customer retention and drive our ARPU higher. By the end of the fourth quarter, mobile ARPU increased to $3.80 or UAH 161, demonstrating the clear financial return on our ecosystem strategy.
Finally, we continue to make solid progress on delivering on our strategic priorities. Last month, we announced the acquisition of Tabletki.ua, Ukraine's leading online health care marketplace. Tabletki facilitated about $1.2 billion in gross merchandise value over the last 12 months. The acquisition will be accretive for our earnings with immediate effect, and we are excited about forthcoming synergies, including with Helsi.
Continued expansion of Direct to Cell reflects our dedication to play a leading role in Ukraine's and our industry's tech innovation. We have expanded the initial tech services to all our 4G customers, of whom almost 5 million have already tried it out. We plan to expand the light data and OTT voice over 2026.
Let's go to the next slide. This slide summarizes our performance for full 2025. Telecom revenue grew 15% to just over $1 billion, driven in large part by customers upgrading plans, moving to 4G and increasing data consumption. The 4.7x growth in digital revenue was driven in large part by Uklon's consolidation in the third quarter and the shift in Kyivstar TV's revenue model.
But all our digital services and brands contributed material growth. EBITDA rose 26% to $648 million, the EBITDA margin coming in at 56%. Net profit for the year was $124 million with earnings per share at $0.57. As a reminder, these figures include the $162 million onetime noncash charge we recognized in the third quarter related to our NASDAQ listing. Excluding this impact, 2025 adjusted net profit was $286 million. Adjusted EPS was $1.32.
Moving on our 30% CapEx intensity matched to our outlook and reflects ongoing initiatives on energy resilience, network modernization and securing coverage in Ukraine wartime conditions. Despite escalated investments, we generated net operating cash flow of $558 million and equity free cash flow after leases and licenses of $194 million.
So next slide, please. Robust results for the fourth quarter supported the strong 2025 numbers. Revenue grew 28% year-on-year in dollarized terms to $321 million, telecom revenue rising more than 11% and digital growing more than sixfold. EBITDA grew 22% to $172 million, while net profit came in at $90 million, resulting in fourth quarter EPS of $0.37. CapEx intensity was steady and in line with our stated outlook at 30%. Finally, we ended the quarter with a cash balance of $455 million, sustaining our fortress balance sheet.
Next slide, please. Going segment by segment, let's start with mobile. Mobile subscribers were stable at 22.4 million. This soft year-on-year trend reflects multi-SIM users dropping their secondary cards as well as Ukraine's present demographic pressures. Our churn rate was 13.5% in fourth quarter, down some 4 percentage points year-on-year but rebounding from the third quarter secular low. We continue to lead with the highest market share in Ukraine mobile. Mobile ARPU maintained double-digit growth, rising 17% year-on-year to $3.80 or UAH 161. Core drivers included a migration of more than 2% of customers quarter-on-quarter to 4G plans; okay, around 31% year-on-year growth in data consumption; and customers moving to multiplay, which supports both mobile and digital revenue.
Relatedly, note the accelerating growth in fixed broadband, where the customer base grew 4% year-on-year. Note the accelerating share of broadband customers who subscribe to Kyivstar TV, which expanded more than 3 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 48%. We attribute this growth to effective marketing and the rising appeal of our content library, including programs not available elsewhere in Ukraine.
Let's go to the next slide. Yes. Cross-sales and synergies bring us back to the core of our digital growth strategy, multiplay. Multiplay counts customers that use at least one digital app in addition to voice and data services. The multiplay segment drives growth through stronger customer engagement, higher data consumption and improved retention. Multiplay customers grew 18% year-on-year in the fourth quarter to reach 7.3 million. This equates to 35% of our 1-month active customer base or nearly 6 percentage points higher than a year earlier. They also generate higher ARPU. The average multiplay customer spends $5.20 a month on our services, 37% more than the average for a mobile customer alone.
So next slide, let me now delve deeper into the digital revenue performance. I highlighted earlier how digital increased by more than 6x year-on-year to reach $50 million or more than UAH 2.1 billion, now accounting for nearly 16% of revenue. I would like to make 3 points. First, while the consolidation of Uklon from April magnified our digital revenues, even without Uklon, digital revenue grew 140%. Secondly, growth spans all verticals, Helsi, Kyivstar TV, digital enterprise and Uklon. Thirdly, our sustainable cost advantages stem directly from our business synergies, including our low customer acquisition costs and an optimized distribution model. This enable us to scale profitability and maintain strong economics.
Moving to Uklon, our ride-hailing business. In Q4 alone, Uklon contributed more than UAH 1.4 billion in revenue and UAH 386 million in EBITDA. The platform grew rides booked by 9% year-on-year to 43.6 million and deliveries completed by 22% to 1.3 million. For December alone, monthly users reached record-high 3.8 million. Uklon's EBITDA reflects a growing and profitable business in Ukraine.
Our digital enterprise business continued to gain traction this quarter. Demand is rising across Ukraine's corporate and government sectors for cloud, cybersecurity, big data and advanced connectivity solutions. The business generated UAH 250 million in revenue, up 64% year-over-year. Growth is steady across our services in the number of businesses turning to Kyivstar to enhance their digital operations. For example, Adwisor, our self-service AdTech platform, has seen registered clients expand by more than half quarter-on-quarter to reach more than 3,800 customers. Kyivstar.Tech remains central to connecting all the parts of our ecosystem, to providing IT and AI-related services to external enterprises and to our leadership in the wider Ukrainian tech space.
This includes leading our partnership to build an LLM with Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation to serve both public and private sector needs. In December, we announced that Google's next-generation open AI model, Gemma, would be the foundational architecture for the model.
On the entertainment, Kyivstar TV continues to strengthen its position as Ukraine's leading digital entertainment platform. The business' revenues quadrupled in the fourth quarter year-on-year to UAH 351 million. Several key factors contributed: first, shifting our TV partnership to a platform rent model as discussed in detail in the third quarter; second, subscriber expansion. For instance, active customers rose 25% year-on-year in December to 2.5 million. And as mentioned, 48% of our broadband customers are now also Kyivstar TV subscribers. And our growing and unique content library, including the production with partners of original, unique content in Ukrainian.
Now we have Helsi, Ukraine's leading health tech platform. Helsi had more than 28 million registered patients with access to more than 1,700 health care institutions and over 42,000 medical professionals at end of 2025. Helsi is deeply embedded in Ukraine's eHealth ecosystem, which manages appointments, scheduling, prescriptions and health records. This motivates patients and providers to continue working with the platform.
As we ramp up monetization with premium offerings that complement our established free services, revenue grew 40% year-on-year to UAH 95 million in the fourth quarter. Our paid models ended the year with more than 57,000 subscribers, nearly quadrupling year-on-year. Among our expanding paid services are advanced health insight products such as professional interpretation of medical tests, results and biomarker tracking. The service also demonstrates our commitment to corporate social responsibility and ESG as Helsi improves access to health care during the wartime.
Let me now pass the call to Boris to talk through the financials in more detail.
Thank you, Oleksandr. We delivered full year revenue of nearly $1.2 billion or UAH 48 billion, up 25.8% year-over-year in dollar terms. This momentum was capped off by a stellar fourth quarter, where total revenue reached $321 million or 28% year-on-year. For the full year, telecom revenue grew 15% or $1 billion. As highlighted earlier, this growth was driven by robust ARPU expansion, customer upgrade to data-rich 3G, 4G plans and mobile data consumption that surged.
Digital revenue soared nearly sixfold for the full year to $124 million, representing 10.7% of total revenue. The momentum is accelerating rapidly. In the fourth quarter alone, digital revenue reached $50 million and made up 15.7% of total revenue. This growth comes not only from Uklon but almost from higher multiple penetration and rapid expansion across our digital verticals, including digital enterprise solution, Kyivstar TV and Helsi.
On profitability, full year EBITDA grew 25.8% year-over-year to $648 million. Hence, we sustained resilient full year EBITDA margin of 56%, reflecting strong operating leverage and disciplined cost management. Uklon was a material new contributor to this, delivering $27.6 million for the full year EBITDA, including $9.2 million in the fourth quarter alone. I highlight here, while digital margins are structurally lower than telecom margins, then their CapEx intensity is lower, resulting in comparable cash conversions. As our revenue mix shift towards digital, we remain focused on sustaining EBITDA growth at scale while enhancing group-wide capital efficiency and long-term free cash flow generation.
For the full year, CapEx, excluding license and leases totaled $351 million, resulting in CapEx intensity of 30.3%. This reflects our sustained investment to improve quality and reliability, network modernization, and extensive energy installations. By December, we upgraded approximately 3,740 generators and 252,000 batteries for backup capacity. Despite these escalated investments, Kyivstar continues to generate substantial free cash flow. For full year, equity free cash flow after leases and licenses reached a robust $194 million.
Turning now to the balance sheet. We ended the year with an exceptionally strong cash and deposits position of $456 million or UAH 19.3 billion. This solid footing ensures we continue to be well placed to fund our ecosystem expansion and capital investments while maintaining a prudent and flexible capital structure. Gross debt, including leases, stood at $104 million or UAH 4.4 billion. As a reminder, we carry significant -- we carry insignificant external debt. The figure primarily reflects the debt to our parent company, VEON. Lease liabilities stood at $374 million or UAH 15.9 billion, which arise mainly from our infrastructure tower lease agreement with the Ukraine Tower Company and fully recognized under IFRS 16 standards. Our net cash position when excluding those leases liabilities remained robust at $352 million.
Let me now hand the call back to Oleksandr. Oleksandr, you're on mute.
Yes. Thank you, Boris. Thank you. Let me briefly update you on the strategic priorities. In the mobile telecom business, we are focused on sustainable market leadership through maintaining and developing a high-quality paying customer base, technological leadership and ecosystem of existing and new digital products and innovations like Direct to Cell. In the fixed broadband market, we want to strengthen group leadership via organic expansion and acquisitions. In digital, we are concentrated on growing digital offerings organically and through acquisitions and increasing multiplay penetration and customer engagement.
Next slide, please. As of our recent strategic milestone and execution, we remain proud to be the first company in Europe and among the first companies globally to provide customers Starlink Direct to Cell. Almost 5 million customers have already taken advantage of the initial text capabilities. We look forward to rolling out light data and OTT voice later this year.
In December, we acquired SUNVIN 11 for $8.2 million. SUNVIN operates a nearly 13-megawatt solar plant producing energy equivalent to 4% of our annual electricity consumption. The investment offer us a natural hedge on energy, one of our largest recurring costs. It also dovetails with our strategy to support Ukraine's recovery and energy independence as well as being complementary to the demands of our digital services.
In late February 2026, we announced the acquisition of fixed broadband Internet service provider Shtorm for UAH 420 million. The acquisition brings over 50,000 new broadband customers across 130 municipalities into the Kyivstar ecosystem, supporting our strategy to expand our broadband network. Finally, we also announced in February the acquisition of Tabletki.ua, Ukraine's leading online marketplace for health care and wellness products.
So on the next slide, a few words about Tabletki. Tabletki connects our customers with over 14,000 pharmacies. The platform already facilitated an average of 14 million monthly bookings in 2025 and generated some $1.2 billion in gross merchandise value over the 12 months to September 30. The transaction is immediately earnings accretive for future quarters. Based on the company's trailing 12 months management accounts, the purchase come at an EV to EBITDA for 6.7 and P/E at 8, which we consider attractive multiples.
Strategically, the acquisition expands our digital health care footprint. By integration, Tabletki alongside Helsi and the Uklon delivery network, we expect to realize meaningful cross-selling synergies and drive further engagement across our 15 million digital monthly active customers. In other words, this is another way Kyivstar aims to make our customers' lives a bit easier and more efficient while also creating value for shareholders.
Looking further ahead on the financials. Despite the challenges and uncertainties, Kyivstar continues to execute strongly. For the full year of 2026, we expect revenue to grow by 8% to 11% and EBITDA to grow by 5% to 8% in dollar terms. Please note that this assumes an average exchange rate of UAH 44.5 to the dollar. In local currency terms, this translates to an expectation of 15% to 18% for revenue growth and 12% to 15% EBITDA growth. The relative slowdown in our outlooks year-on-year growth reflects the comparison base no longer including the immediate aftermath of the 2023 cyberattack, a weaker spot exchange rate and normalization after the inclusion of Uklon.
Regarding capital allocation, we expect CapEx intensity to moderate to a range of 23% to 26% of revenue for the year. This reflects our plan to continue targeted investments that sustain our network quality and energy resilience while normalizing from the elevated accelerated investments we made throughout 2025. As always, this outlook reflects the best visibility we have today. It remains subject to the significant external uncertainties we face given the war.
Let me now summarize. We are uniquely positioned at the only direct dedicated equity exposure to Ukrainian -- to Ukraine listed on a U.S. stock exchange. Despite the geopolitical issues, we are leveraging our digital momentum, sustainable strong cash flow and fortress balance sheet to drive expansion; reinforce our network resilience and play a leading role in Ukraine's tech sector.
Our operational and financial performance, including double-digit growth across segments, reflects not only the attractiveness of our offerings and markets but also the execution strength of our world-class team. Regardless of the externalities, we remain confident in Ukraine's trajectory and the opportunities before us. We are committed to shaping Ukraine's digital future from AI and cloud capabilities to offering our customers more ways to connect with each other and the world.
Thank you for your support for Kyivstar. We can now open for the -- our line for the Q&A.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Jesse Sobelson with BTIG.
2. Question Answer
It's nice to see the stability in mobile and the digital strength. On the mobile side, I believe Ukraine recently joined the EU's roam like at home framework in January 2026. Could you comment on how you anticipate this to impact your business and if it's material or not?
Okay. Let me take it. So first of all, I really welcome Ukraine to join EU roaming zone. This is probably the first practical step on the Ukrainian way to join European Union. Okay? From the financial perspective, it will have, let's say, substantial impact on our P&L, taking into account that EU roaming zone is not only regulating mobile termination rate but also country termination rate. Because of this and taking into account that Ukraine is normally a receiver of traffic from the Europe, we will face something like UAH 1 billion effect -- negative effect on our top line, which is almost 100% translated into the EBITDA.
That's great detail, and that explains part of the guidance here that we're seeing. And I guess just a quick follow-up. Guidance is still strong. You still call for high single-digit growth this year. Could you break down what's expected from the digital segment in Uklon versus the mobile segment and your subscriber base in that forecast?
We do expect a relative stability of our subscriber base and much faster growth of our digital value proposition and penetration of the multiplay. Okay. So as you see, we are developing organically, and we still have a certain run rate that was initiated in 2025 that will have significant effect on our 2026 results. Okay? And at the same time, we are moving according -- we are actually executing our strategy. And according to our strategy, we are interested in development of different digital domains. Okay? And probably Tabletki is a very good evidence that we are disciplined in our strategy execution.
Our next question comes from Max Findlay with Rothschild & Co Redburn.
So I was hoping to firstly dig into your revenue and EBITDA outlook for '26. There's been a little bit of confusion about what is in the guidance. So can I first check whether the outlook includes inorganic contributions, so Uklon in Q1 and Tabletki? And I might just let you answer that before I follow up.
I will ask Boris to take this question.
Yes. The -- Max, thank you for the question. So the impacts of Uklon full year consolidation and Tabletki from the acquisition dates are included.
Okay. So if I could follow up, please. That suggests that your EBITDA guide is quite conservative. So if I look at the guidance you've given us today, which is 5% to 8% for EBITDA, at the midpoint, that implies EBITDA growing in absolute terms and dollars by $40 million. Now you might expect $35 million of that to come from a mixture of Uklon and Tabletki, which implies the rest of the business is growing at $7 million or about 1%. And I was just wondering, do you feel this EBITDA guidance is quite conservative? Or is that how you see the underlying business performing in the year?
Let me start, and then I will probably ask Boris to add some colors. There are a number of factors that are incorporated in our current outlook. Okay? So first is the comparison base, which was slightly affected by the cyberattack and our unprecedented, let's say, program, retention program that we provided to our customers at the beginning of 2024. The second one is the change in, let's say, proportion of the telco business and digital business with a certain pressure imposed by the digital business on the EBITDA marginality. Okay? And the third factor is EU roaming zone that will have a direct impact on our EBITDA. And the fourth factor is actually probably a drop of prudency incorporated into the outlook.
So Boris, may you add something?
Just, Max, I think you're looking at the dollar number, so you need to consider -- so we provided the dollar rates for 2024, 2025 and also the outlook we used for 2026. So you see that, in 2025, it was almost flat. So now we see the accelerated devaluation of hryvnia. That's why we provided this forecast with the exchange rate of UAH 44.5. And another factor is, definitely, we have a very uncertain time, and we want to be prudent with our outlook. So we want to monitor the developments over the next several months before we can revisit it.
Okay. If I could squeeze one follow-up in, that would be much appreciated. So your guidance implies margins will contract, which you did discuss on the call. But I was just wondering if you could help us understand what is behind the OpEx pressures that your guidance implies. And particularly about global energy prices, which face a lot of uncertainty at the moment, I wonder how your guidance has accounted for this and what your exposure is given a lot of the investment you've done is in backup energy solutions.
Oleksandr, yes, if I may take this one. So we discussed with you in the previous calls that one of the biggest factor in our cost is actually the energy cost and the cost of the utilities. So this is especially relevant when we are talking about the period of the massive blackout at the time when we need to run a significant part of our network on the diesel generators, also the spike of electricity prices given both the attacks on the energy infrastructure in Ukraine but also the global energy crisis, which is now happening because of the crisis in the Middle East.
At the same time, kind of we incorporated this in our forecast. We do, as you see, try to hedge these energy prices with the focused investment into energy sector like a SUNVIN acquisition. So we are definitely considering other options kind of to back up and let's say, to hedge our dependency on the electricity prices, which we are actively working on now. So the increase, I think, of the presence in the energy sector for us is the natural hedge against this utilities growth for the coming periods.
And maybe one more comment from my side. So because of the current situation, so Ukraine is being supported by European Union from the energy resilience and certain import -- export or import of the electricity in Ukraine. And quite often, right now, we have Eastern European prices for the business in Ukraine. So I do not expect so significant inflation in energy pricing as we used to experience during the last 3 years.
Our next question comes from Vincent Fernando with Zero One.
I have questions on the digital platform. So first on Tabletki. For this $160 million deal, you already own Helsi and that has millions of users. You also have your Kyivstar subscribers. Can you give some color or your expectation for when we could see a time line for maybe a Helsi-to-Tabletki integration, whereby, for example, people could book their prescriptions through Helsi and then that would go into your Tabletki platform?
My second question is just on Uklon. I'm just wondering if you could provide what the current market share is for Uklon because I know you have Uber and Bolt operating. And also, do you view that market as having a TAM expansion opportunity once -- if conflict eases down in Ukraine?
Okay. Let me start with the synergies between Helsi and Tabletki. Of course, you are absolutely right. This is kind of our vision that we would like to execute, and this vision is starting with the appointment done through the Helsi application between patient and doctor. Okay? We want them to have an opportunity to choose and to book, let's say, medicine or pharmacy products, let's say, through the -- within the same customer journey and in case of necessity, to be delivered by Uklon to the patient. Okay? So this is our vision. So our specific plan is to start pilots or some kind of MVPs between Helsi and Tabletki during this year, okay, with a clear strategy that we will present to the KGL Supervisory Board somewhere in Q4 2026.
Right now, we are very much focused on the business stabilization and integration. Okay? So we want to be sure that business is developing according to the business case, okay, that is actually behind our acquisition. And by the way, we do not include any synergies into the business case. So it's quite, I would say, attractive business case without synergies. Okay?
We want to stabilize. We want to integrate from different perspective because to integrate local business into the, let's say, public domain, public company is a challenge. And then we will be focused on the development strategies and synergies between Helsi and Tabletki, between Uklon and Tabletki, between Kyivstar and Tabletki.
Great. And just the items on Uklon if you may?
Yes. And Uklon market share is not clear because it's not so transparent market like mobile telecom market or fixed broadband market. We are definitely market leader. We have just indirect market assessment through the banking payments. Okay? So I don't think that it is right to present, let's say, market share based on this, but it is clear that Uklon is a market leader. Bolt is #2, and Uber is #3 on the ride-hailing market. Okay? We are still growing, and we are growing through the growing penetration of the ride-hailing services and growing market share.
Okay. And then do you envision a TAM expansion for the whole ridesharing space if things ease in the Ukraine?
We have our own strategy. Okay? And this strategy, let's name it a modern mobility strategy around Uklon. We want Uklon to expand into the mobility segment. We are already doing some experiments with the bus tickets with special dedicated buses for the most popular routes, for example, in Bukovel. This is our, let's say, ski resort, the most popular ski resort in Ukraine. So we are doing some experiments how to develop the ecosystem of the modern mobility services around Uklon. And by the way, one of these experiments is already a successful stand-alone business, is a delivery business, which is growing 22% year-on-year.
Our next question comes from Chris Hoare at NSR.
My question almost follows on from the previous one, just sort of thinking about the expansion of the digital ecosystem. You've obviously been quite active from an M&A perspective, and now you want to extract maximum synergies from putting all these businesses together. And I just wonder whether you feel like you're sort of approaching the limit of what management bandwidth you have to be able to fully deliver on all of that. Or should we expect a kind of similar cadence of M&A going forward over the next kind of 12 or 18 months?
It's a bit difficult to make very clear forecast about M&A activity because it not only depends on us. Okay? So I think that we have strategic intent to develop our ecosystem organically and nonorganically. So -- and we have appetite for this. You are right. We should take into account our organizational form and talent, how we are going to lead this business in the future. And somehow, we are doing a certain, let's say, evolutionary steps around KGL Group, and we are considering how to structure KGL in the future around certain verticals. We are just at the beginning of this process, but this will let us to control a relatively diversified group so to manage it properly and to ensure synergies between the different verticals.
Okay. Interesting.
Chris, Sasha, if you allow me to mention one more concern because our acquisition strategy comes with actually also a talent acquisition strategy. When we acquire companies like Uklon, Helsi or Tabletki, they come with fantastic management teams, and we find this as a very effective way of actually growing our leadership pool. And if you look to Sasha's and Boris' portfolio in Ukraine, you will see one obvious missing element, which is digital banking. I think that's the piece that keeps all of us excited for next couple of years.
And just to follow up on that, does the -- my understanding is there needs to be regulatory change to enable you to enter that market. Is that still the case? Or am I behind the curve there?
Well, it is still the case, and we are working on this. We are in a dialogue with the National Bank of Ukraine. We want to address this. But of course -- so we want to combine this with a very clear strategy, what type of role we want to play because there are different types of licenses, different approaches. So somehow, for us, it's not only a matter of regulation. It's also a matter of the right entry strategy into the segment.
Our next question comes from Matthew Harrigan with StoneX.
I think you alluded to the demographic effects, diaspora on the telecom churn. I think there's something like 7 million people, mostly women and children, not military age men. But presumably, if we did get a settlement, I mean, you probably wouldn't have a step function return of all those people to Ukraine, clearly, but you'd probably get some positive drift, tailwind for a number of years for people returning. I know that there's probably some app opportunities, especially on the entertainment side as with VEON's Pakistan business. But obviously, you'd love to have those people come back to Ukraine for a lot of reasons. I mean, do you think that's tenable? Or do you think -- I would think the EU, Poland, in particular, would be probably be pretty anxious to see people return to Ukraine, and that would presumably help your business.
I think this is very right consideration that significant share of the migrants out will be back in Ukraine. It will take some time. Of course, one of the mandatory requirements is a stable ceasefire. Okay? So -- but we do expect that this will be one of the major factors that will affect Ukraine, Ukrainian economy and our business in case of peaceful resolution of the current war. Okay?
Right now, we're still in touch with these customers. We are, on a monthly base, servicing 2 million migrants. So we are servicing a bit more than average European operator of customers abroad, so just because they still have a live connection with Ukraine, with their relatives, with their banking system, sometimes with their employers. So that's why we are essential part of this kind of humanitarian communication link between Ukraine and Ukrainians abroad.
Our next question comes from Ahmed Mostafa with Inam.
Congrats on the numbers. I have one question. You have successfully reached 5 million users on the Starlink Direct to Cell services for messaging. As you transition to voice and light data services later in 2026, what is the planned monetization model? Specifically, do you see this as a driver for higher tier ARPU bundles or a primary as a defensive tool to maintain your low churn rates?
Yes, we do consider certain approaches to commercialization of the light data and voice-over OTT services. So right now, current messaging service, we are considering like a humanitarian service, and we want this to be available to everyone in Ukraine. So our message is very simple. In a very difficult energy situation and a very difficult security situation, with Kyivstar LTE smartphone, Kyivstar SIM card and OpenSky, you can be online, so regardless of the circumstances. But yes, we have certain plans how we will commercialize light data and voice-over OTT, but right now, our main focus on this humanitarian service, churn reduction and loyalty increase.
Our next question comes from Natalia Shpygotska from Dragon Capital.
Congratulations on the great results. One question from my side, please. As we understand the lockup period for the sale of the company's shares by the parent and SPAC sponsors have now expired, and so we may see fast new share offerings. And I would like to ask if any new share offering similar to the SPO in late January would be linked to a similar registration of new offered shares and would be accompanied by respective regulatory filings with the Stock Exchange Commission.
Thank you for your question. I will ask Cole to answer. Cole, please.
I would be happy to, but just let me double check that Kaan doesn't want to address that.
So Natalia, thanks a lot. I think what we see is we are running a campaign called Invest in Ukraine Now, right? And there are not many investable vehicles in the world for people from the Western community, U.S., Europe, to participate in a phenomenal opportunity of reconstructing Ukraine.
So we will keep our minds open in terms of making further offerings of Kyivstar to the market. And we are very well informed about the SEC regulations, so we'll, of course, be compliant to all those when those opportunities arise. But I was extremely happy to see that in our secondary offering in January, we had 5x demand. And that shows actually the appetite of Western investors to participate in the Ukrainian growth opportunity.
Our next question comes from Tim Horan with OpCo.
Can we get a little bit more details about the satellite links, the direct to device? Can you just talk about the quality? What percentage of text messages do you think are going through? What's the latency look like? And maybe just any color, how long is your exclusivity? And how do you monetize this longer term?
Okay. Let me take it. So first of all, we do not have any exclusivity. Okay? So we are developing a robust strategy of, let's say, cooperation between terrestrial and nonterrestrial service providers. Okay? So we are considering that this is the future of the telecom value proposition.
So far, it's just the first step. So we have launched in November 2025 mobile messaging through the Starlink Direct to Cell network. So far, almost 5 million customers use this service. The proportion is around 20% sent SMS versus 80% received SMS. So we see that the probability -- the SLA is really good, so I don't see any difference with the terrestrial network from the delivery perspective and quality perspective. So everything is okay with the service. And what I also see that, of course, because of the war situation, is a kind of tendency that service is especially popular on the eastern part of Ukraine closer to the front line.
We do expect commercialization, so on the base of the free-of-charge messaging services. And right now, we are considering different approaches. It can be a stand-alone value-add service. It can be extra service to the high-value bundles. So all options are possible, so -- and we will introduce this somewhere in Q3 2026. We are planning to introduce it in Q3 2026.
And can you update us on your fiber strategy? Are you more focused on build-out or on...
You mean fixed broadband strategy or fiber as an...
Yes.
Fixed broadband.
Fixed broadband, yes.
Okay. Yes, we are developing organically and nonorganically. Organically, we are increasing penetration into our current infrastructure. So our current penetration is around 25%. Of course, it's different region by region, and it is a bit different from the lifetime perspective across the regions. Okay? So that's why one of our focuses is to increase penetration into the current infrastructure through a fixed mobile convergent value proposition.
And as you see, we are quite successfully developing not only 2P value proposition but actually 3P value proposition. So your understanding right now from 100% fixed broadband customer base, 80% are 2P customers and 48% are 3P customers who are using not only fixed broadband but also mobile and Kyivstar OTT TV services. Okay?
So first focus is to increase penetration. Second focus is in new construction. So we are building more than 1,000 effective houses every year. Okay? And we will want to develop. We are building mainly xPON technology, and we are trying to either modernize our current FTTB network to 1 gigabit speed or to substitute it with the xPON/GPON technology. Okay?
We are also focused on nonorganic development. Nonorganic development is acquisitions and Shtorm is one of the examples. It's actually second acquisition that we did during the last 18 months on the market, and through the partnership. So we have huge infrastructure, and we are a dominant player in the urban areas. And somehow, we are considering an open fiber approach, and we made certain proposals for the biggest fixed broadband and convergent operators in Ukraine in order to exchange our current infrastructure and to ensure entrance into the new regions.
Our next question is a written question from Sergiy Lyashenko from Oschadbank. It says, does Kyivstar have plans to follow MHP and to issue international and/or local bonds in 2026 or later?
It's probably a bit more focused question to our Chairman. [ Kaan vy ], you want to answer it?
Let me answer it this way. As you can imagine, we are one of the biggest enterprises in Ukraine, and I see one of our responsibilities to contribute to the development of the capital markets in the country. And if we see an opportunity for taking a lead here, creating transparency, a best practice in the country, I would actually encourage my team to consider about issuing a local bond. I think this would make a pioneering action on the country, and I would be supportive of that. Not that we necessarily need cash to run our business or make investments, but I think it is a responsibility for the capital markets development.
Let me add. We already declared that kind of people's IPO is one of our dream. Okay? So we are considering what are the possibilities, but it is probably too early, let's say, to address this question with certain detail.
Our next question comes from Adrian Cundy with Emerging and Frontier Capital.
Just looking at the slides, I was -- could you provide some further color on the -- what seems to be a pretty substantial revenue acceleration at Uklon and Kyivstar TV in Q4? And with respect to Uklon, is that -- is any of that because of the Kazakhstan entry or market expansion? Or is it really just sort of deliveries and increased usage?
There are 3 drivers of the Uklon growth, the core ride-hailing business growth. I can say it's a bit more organic growth rather than exponential growth. The second driver is delivery business. This is where we observed especially at the Q4, a very significant growth rate. Okay? And the third one is advertising business. So we are developing advertising from scratch. And so it is still relatively low in absolute term, but it is providing so 100% year-on-year growth for absolutely new business within the Uklon portfolio. Okay?
Kyivstar TV is driven by 3 factors. The first one is a new contractual terms from revenue share to platform rent with our partner, 1+1. The second one is our growing number of customers. We reached 2.5 million with a relatively low share of freemium customer and I think -- customers, and I think this is a quite big achievement. And the third one is Kyivstar originals. So we're already producing around 10-plus titles per year that are available only on the Kyivstar TV platform with a certain exclusive agreements with the major -- with the global majors. And the whole content is in Ukrainian language, which is also, from my perspective, is one of the competitive advantages.
Okay. And then a quick follow-up on, sorry, on Uklon. You alluded to earlier as to developing a mobility strategy. Could you give some color? Are you going to be sort of getting in the vehicle acquisition or the vehicle leasing business to drivers? And could you also give us an update just quickly on what's happening with the Kazakh launches? I've noticed there's a website and a few other things. And I think you've mentioned also taking it to other markets like Bangladesh and Pakistan, so just sort of an overall strategic top-down would be great.
Okay. Let me start with the ecosystem development. So we tend to stay with an asset-light model if it is possible. Okay? So from this perspective, we are ride-hailing -- online ride-hailing platform rather than taxi fleet or taxi service in Ukraine. Okay? And this is our key priority. But we are trying to develop a new services, so around very strong Uklon brand. Delivery is one of the example. Okay? So -- but it is not only peer-to-peer delivery. It is also delivery through the agents like global model. So we are also considering to enter into the new segments of the modern mobility. But this is just the plans.
And as I already declared, so one of the potential priorities for us is -- so delivery synergies within the group. We did not take any decisions for the international expansion yet. So we are developing our business in Uzbekistan. We are satisfied with the current results, but we want to be sure that our model of international expansion is validated enough based on the synergies between telco and ride-hailing business.
Okay. If I could just, one more quick question. You guys spoke...
Adrian, I'm really sorry. We're actually out of time. So could you and I follow up on that later? We have one more question from someone who hasn't gotten a chance to speak yet.
Go ahead. No problem.
Our final question comes from Tim Savageaux with Northland.
You mentioned digital services at 16% of revenue exiting the year. I wonder, as you consider both the organic and inorganic contributions, whether you might have a target for where you expect digital services to be exiting calendar '26, whether that might be above 20%. And you mentioned the triple-digit organic growth rate in digital services ex acquisitions. Do you expect that to continue?
It will be a kind of forward-looking statement, Tim. So to be fair, you know all our current digital assets and their trends. You know all our new digital assets and their trends. And somehow, I think you can build quite easily the trajectory of our digital business development. Are we satisfied with the -- so forecasted result? No. We want to grow faster in our digital ecosystem but of course, through the prism of value creation to our customers and to the shareholders.
Okay. And then just a brief follow-up. You did see a pretty significant uptick in multiplay subscribers in Q4. I wonder if there's anything seasonal or promotional about that or to what extent you expect that trend to continue as well.
Certain seasonality is definitely in place, okay, because Q4 is normally very, very attractive season for the ride-hailing, for the OTT TV business and partially for the My Kyivstar business. Okay? So certain seasonality is in place. I do expect a certain normalization in Q1, not decline but a certain normalization of the growth rate. Okay? So -- and this is actually what we have seen during the years. Normally, Q4 is a record high. Q1 is a normalization, and Q2 is a return shift to the next year growth.
We have no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Cole Akeson for closing remarks.
Thank you all for participating today, for joining us to discuss our first time as a listed company releasing annual results. As you know, we appreciate the work you do and look forward to continuing these conversations in the future. If any questions remain unanswered, please contact us directly, and we will do our best to help you out. I think that's more than enough from us for now, and thank you again. We will look forward to speaking with you soon.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Kyivstar Group — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
Financial data from Kyivstar Group
Revenue
Revenue is the sum of all sales generated by a company, e.g. for its products or services.
Revenue (TTM) metric explainedDirect Costs
Direct costs are the costs incurred directly in connection with the manufacture of the product or service.
Gross Profit
Gross Profit indicates how much of the revenue remains in the company after deducting direct production costs. If the percentage share of sales is calculated, this is referred to as the gross margin.
Gross Profit metric explainedSelling and Administrative Expenses
Selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) include all expenses for marketing and sales as well as the general administration of the company.
Research and Development Expense
Research and development costs (R&D) provide information on how much the company invests in the research and development of its products. The costs are particularly interesting as a percentage of revenue and in comparison to direct competitors.
EBITDA
EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) is the company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The EBITDA margin is calculated as a percentage of sales.
Depreciation and Amortization
Depreciation represents reductions in the value of the company's assets (e.g. due to wear and tear on machinery).
EBIT (Operating Income)
EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) is the company's profit before interest and taxes, also known as the operating income. The EBIT Margin is calculated as a percentage of sales at
.
Net Profit
Net Profit represents the profit or loss after deduction of all costs.
Net Profit metric explainedStocksGuide Premium
| Jun '26 |
+/-
%
|
||
| Revenue | 1,280 1,280 |
-
100%
|
|
| - Direct Costs | 143 143 |
-
11%
|
|
| Gross Profit | 1,137 1,137 |
-
89%
|
|
| - Selling and Administrative Expenses | 441 441 |
-
34%
|
|
| - Research and Development Expense | - - |
-
-
|
|
| EBITDA | 704 704 |
-
55%
|
|
| - Depreciation and Amortization | 233 233 |
-
18%
|
|
| EBIT (Operating Income) EBIT | 471 471 |
-
37%
|
|
| Net Profit | 163 163 |
-
13%
|
|
In millions USD.
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Company Profile
Kyivstar Group Ltd. engages in the telecommunications and digital business. The company is headquartered in Dubai, Dubai. The company went IPO on 2025-08-15. The firm and its subsidiaries provide services across mobile and fixed line technologies, including 4G, big data, cloud solutions, cybersecurity, and digital TV. Cohen Circle Acquisition Corp I is a subsidiary of the Company, and its parent is VEON Amsterdam BV.


