Kyivstar parent VEON revenue surges, boosted by digital services

By Leo Marchandon

(Reuters) -VEON, the parent company of Ukraine's Kyivstar and Pakistan's Jazz, reported a 9% rise in quarterly revenue to $1 billion, as more consumers picked up its digital services despite the conflicts in Ukraine and Pakistan.

Kyivstar and Jazz are the largest mobile operators in Ukraine and Pakistan, respectively.

VEON reported an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization growth of 13.7% to $439 million and confirmed its outlook for 2025.

The company is shifting to a "digital operator" strategy, offering financial, healthcare and entertainment services in addition to mobile connectivity.

"We believe that the future of our industry will move in this direction. It's not anymore about selling number of minutes or number of gigabytes," CEO Kaan Terzioglu said.

VEON's various entertainment, financial services and superapps - digital platforms offering a wide range of daily life services like China's WeChat - have grown 20%, 33% and 22%, respectively, from last year.

"We have quite big technology companies... With these technology companies, actually, we do have capabilities to develop our own applications, which are actually visible in the fields of entertainment, financial services, education and healthcare, and also our AI tools", Terzioglu said.

In Ukraine, VEON's business saw a 20% year-on-year growth, with digital services driving the momentum. Kyivstar TV revenue surged 177%, while its recent acquisition of ride-hailing service Uklon further boosted digital revenues.

Kyivstar's healthcare platform, Helsi, which provides online consultations, also grew, with 2.6 million consultations per month.

In Pakistan, VEON's digital revenues continued to drive growth, with a more than 20% increase in revenue.

Terzioglu said the escalation in conflict in Kashmir has been worrying, but expressed positivity about the situation settling down.

(Reporting by Leo Marchandon; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)