Ukraine's largest mobile operator Kyivstar, after acquiring the online taxi service Uklon, plans to increase its revenue share from non-telecommunications businesses to 10% and eventually to 50%, said Kyivstar CEO Oleksandr Komarov.
"We are a telecom company, but we will be a company providing digital services with a telecom license. This means that, in the future, a significant portion—I'd say, ambitiously, half of the revenue—should come from non-telecom services. This is a very big ambition, of course. How much is it now? With the acquisition of Uklon, it will be about 10%," Komarov said in Fedoriv Vlog.
According to him, Kyivstar plans to reach a 10% share of revenue from non-telecommunications businesses by the end of 2025. This will include revenues from Uklon, Kyivstar TV, the Helsi service, as well as cloud services and Big Data services.
Komarov confirmed that Kyivstar remains interested in digital verticals, with the online taxi service appealing to the company because the business in Ukraine is growing and profitable.
"It seems to me that this is still a matter of specific competitive struggles in a market that has probably become somewhat secondary to large international players," Komarov said.
Earlier, the CEO of Kyivstar stated that the mobile operator, while building an integrated digital ecosystem, could acquire assets in e-commerce or classifieds (bulletin boards), and is interested in fintech.
In early April, Kyivstar closed a deal to acquire 97% of the corporate rights of the online taxi service Uklon for $155.2 million. 3% of Uklon's corporate rights will remain with one of the company's co-founders, Vitalii Dyatlenko.
On March 19, Kyivstar announced the signing of the agreement to acquire 97% of Uklon for $155.2 million.
It was reported that for Kyivstar, the investment in Uklon was a logical step in building an integrated digital ecosystem and an important phase in inorganic growth and business scaling on the path to meeting VEON's $1 billion investment commitments from 2023 to 2027.
VEON Group CEO Kaan Terzioglu stated that the online taxi service Uklon had one of the best financial results among ride-hailing services worldwide—its revenue has grown to $60 million over the last four years, with an EBITDA of 44%. The CAGR (compound annual growth rate) for the last four years has been 49%.
Uklon operates in 27 Ukrainian cities and in the Bukovel tourist complex, uniting over 100,000 active driver-partners on its platform, who together fulfill more than 10 million orders each month. Since 2023, the company has started international expansion by launching an online car ordering service in Uzbekistan.
