VEON Q2 2025 Earnings Report

VEON EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $8.30
• Consensus EPS: $0.95
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$7.35
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

VEON Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.09 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.02 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$63.40 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

VEON Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 8/7/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, August 7, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

VEON (NASDAQ:VEON) Ltd (NASDAQ: VEON) is a global telecommunications and digital services provider headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Originally founded as VimpelCom in Russia in 1992, the company rebranded to VEON in 2017 to reflect its transformation into a technology-driven operator. VEON operates as a holding company with direct investments in mobile and internet service providers across multiple emerging markets, delivering voice, data and digital services to individual and enterprise customers.

Through its operating subsidiaries, VEON offers a broad portfolio that includes 2G/3G/4G mobile access, fixed broadband, digital lifestyle applications and mobile financial services. In recent years the company has expanded beyond core connectivity, launching the VEON app—a unified platform combining messaging, content, payments and e-commerce. VEON’s digital strategy emphasizes financial inclusion with mobile wallet solutions and partnerships aimed at extending access to banking and commerce in underserved regions.

The company’s footprint spans Eastern Europe, Central Asia and parts of North Africa and South Asia, with branded operations such as Beeline, Kyivstar, Jazz and Banglalink. VEON’s markets include Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia and Algeria. This geographic diversification enables VEON to leverage scale in network infrastructure, spectrum management and customer engagement across regulatory environments.

VEON’s leadership team is led by Chief Executive Officer Kaan Terzioğlu, who has steered the company’s digital transformation since 2017. Under his direction, VEON has prioritized innovation and operational efficiency while navigating complex market dynamics. The company remains focused on evolving its service offerings, investing in next-generation technologies and pursuing growth opportunities in high-potential emerging markets.

VEON Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Solid financial performance with Q2 revenues up 5.9% YoY to $1.09 billion and EBITDA up 13.2% YoY to $520 million, prompting full‐year guidance upgrade to 13–15% revenue growth and 14–16% EBITDA growth.
• Positive Sentiment: Digital services surge as direct digital revenues jumped 56.6% YoY to $180 million, now making up 16.5% of total group revenues, boosted by the April consolidation of Ookla contributing $21.7 million in revenue and $9.3 million in EBITDA.
• Positive Sentiment: Asset-light strategy gains momentum via Pakistan’s ENGRO tower pooling deal and Ukraine’s planned Starlink direct-to-cell launch in Q4, alongside completion of the $100 million share buyback, bond repayments, and a $200 million private bond issue.
• Neutral Sentiment: Upcoming Nova-listed Kyivstar SPAC merger and Kyrgyzstan asset sale will incur $150–200 million of noncash Q3 charges, though management expects a net positive equity impact and no effect on core operating momentum.
• Positive Sentiment: Operational leverage and engagement with 4G penetration at 68% (up 4.6 pp), multiplay customers (using at least one digital service) delivering 54.4% of revenues, and multiplay ARPU 3.7× higher than voice-only subscribers.

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to VEON's 02/2025 results presentation. For those of you that have joined the Zoom webinar, if you would like to ask a question, you can use the raise hand button, which can be found on the black bar at the bottom of your Zoom screen at any time to join the queue to ask a question, and you will be called upon during the q and a session. For those of you watching on the webcast, if you would like to submit a written question, please use the ask a question tab at the top right of your screen. These questions can also be sent in at any time during the presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today.

[Operator]

If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. Anand Ramachandran, you may begin.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Good morning, and good afternoon to everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Beyond's second quarter results for the period ending 06/30/2025. My name is Anand Ramachandran, chief corporate development officer and also heading a group investor relations function. Allow me to introduce our senior management in the room today. Next to me is mister Khan Turviolu, a group CEO, and next to him, mister Burak Ozar, a group CFO.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Today's presentation, as usual, will begin with the key highlights and business update from Kaan, followed by a discussion of the financial results by Burak. We will then open up the line for question and answers. Please note that we may make forward looking statements during today's presentation, which involve certain risks and uncertainties. These statements relate to the company's anticipated performance, guidance for 2025, future market developments, operational and network developments, and investments, and the company's ability to realize its targets and initiatives. Actual results may differ materially due to risks, which are detailed in the company's annual report on 20 f and other public filings with the SEC.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

The earnings release and presentation, including reconciliations of non IFRS measures, can also be downloaded from our website. With that, let me hand it over to Khan.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Thank you, Anand. Good morning, good afternoon, and welcome. I appreciate you joining us today for VEON's presentation of our second quarter two thousand twenty five results. We listened to you, and I'll keep my presentation brief and to the point so we have more time for your questions and a richer discussion. We have continued our strong start to the year into the second quarter, and I am pleased that we have delivered a strong quarter again financially, operationally, and with regard to progress on strategic objectives.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Let's start with the financial performance. Our revenues are up 5.9% year on year in US dollars. EBITDA in US dollar terms grew by 13.2% year on year. For the first half, our US dollar revenues grew by 7.3% year on year, and our US dollar EBITDA grew 13.4% year on year. In local currency terms, our revenues grew 11.2% in q two, outpacing both inflation and nominal GDP across our markets.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

EBITDA in local currency grew 19.6%, reflecting our focus on profitable growth. This was yet another billion dollar plus revenue quarter. Our strong EBITDA performance reflects the strength and the scale of our operating model. Looking ahead, we are pleased with the growth momentum across our businesses and are revising our outlook for 02/2025. We now expect local currency growth for total revenue between 13% to 15% year on year and EBITDA growth between 14% to sixteen Second, we are driving exceptional momentum in expanding our digital services portfolio.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Direct digital revenues grew by 57% year on year in dollar terms and now contributes 16.5% of our total group revenues. Ooklon was consolidated effective April 2025. This is a key milestone in our digital expansion strategy and unlocks new growth opportunities for us. We are also accelerating the integration of agentic AI powered features across our platforms and delivering localized and intuitive user experiences to our customers in their own languages at scale. Thirdly, we made substantial progress in executing our asset light strategy.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

We have closed the strategic infrastructure pooling partnership with ENGRO in Pakistan. This unlocked significant value for us. In Ukraine, Kyiv Star continues to make progress on launching direct to cell satellite communications in partnership with Starlink. We expect to launch services in the fourth quarter this year. And last but not least, we continue to deliver for our shareholders.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

We completed the third and final phase of our $100,000,000 share buyback program that we have announced in August. We have bought back close to 3% of our shares in less than a year since we announced the buyback program. We repaid both our April and June 2025 bond maturities and enhanced our financial flexibility with a $200,000,000 private bond issuance. We are making good progress with Kievstar's proposed Nasdaq listing through our business combination with Cohen Circle acquisition Corporation One. We have secured the necessary investment commitments to secure this transaction.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Cohen Circle has scheduled an extraordinary general meeting for August 12 to obtain shareholder approval. Subject to that approval, we expect to close the transaction and launch Kyftar's public market debug. Finally, we deliver on our digital operator strategy, focusing on an asset light model, prioritizing large population, underserved markets, accelerating and expanding our digital services. We are executing a series of transactions aligned with our strategy. The one off impacts from these transactions, completion of the ride hailing business acquisition, Ookla, Theodar Tower sales in Pakistan, as well as last year's fiber infrastructure company, TNS Plus sale in Kazakhstan, are clear examples of these strategic choices and should be seen as planned progress.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Looking ahead, similar transactions may result in either gains or noncash accounting charges. The upcoming Kievstar listing in Nasdaq through a business combination agreement with Coin Circle and the sale of our Kyrgyzstan operations also will fall into this category. These transactions are expected to result in a noncash charge in the range of 150 to $200,000,000 likely to be recognized in the third quarter. The net impact of these transactions will be positive for our equity. These accounting effects, however, have little bearing on the fundamentals and momentum of our core operations.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

While we will continue to provide commentary on like for like trends, we should embrace the new nature of our business as we transform into a consumer and enterprise services company with a telecom license. I have already highlighted most of the numbers on this page. I will make three additional points. First, on a like for like basis, which adjust for the deconsolidation of TNS Plus and Ooklon acquisition, our US dollar revenues would have grown 6.3%, and our US dollar EBITDA would have grown 14.6%. Second, we saw a slight uptick in weighted average inflation across our markets, up to 8.7% in second quarter.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

This comes after three quarters in the range of 7.68.2%. But I'm pleased that our momentum continues to exceed inflation and the nominal GDP growth and showcases our ability to implement fair value pricing while capturing a greater share of consumer wallet. Third, given the pace of change across our business, underlying adjustments have become frequent and short lived and are adding less and less value to our clear performance narrative. Going forward, we will focus on headline numbers to provide you with more consistent and transparent view of our trajectory. This slide summarizes our performance for the quarter.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

I am pleased that our strong revenue momentum continues driven by both telecom infrastructure and digital segments. Telecom and infrastructure segment revenues on a like for like basis that adjust for TNS plus deconsolidation grew 2% in US dollars and 7.4% in local currency terms versus the headline numbers you see on this page. This reflects the powerful impact of our network investments coupled with innovative products and services. Our direct digital revenues were up 57% in US dollar terms and 62% in local currency and now represent 16.5% of total revenue. On profitability, I am pleased that EBITDA margins continue to grow and are up both quarter on quarter and year on year to 47.8% in the second quarter.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Our CapEx intensity for the quarter was 21.3%. On a last twelve month basis, it stands at 24.1%. And excluding Ukraine, our last twelve month CapEx intensity stands at 18.3%, which is in line with our guidance. Last twelve month, equity free cash flow was $611,000,000 up 33.7% year on year. This is driven by both our operational and financial discipline and success of our asset light strategy.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Net debt, excluding leases, stood at $1,960,000,000 as of June as we completed Duplon acquisition in Apple, paid our April and June maturity bonds, and raised 200,000,000 via private bond placement. Finally, we ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1,280,000,000, including $206,000,000 at the headquarter. Let me now deep dive into our digital revenue performance. We have started to break the components of our digital revenue revenues to provide you with greater transparency into growth and potential of our digital businesses. Our digital direct revenues reached 180,000,000 in the second quarter, growing 56.6% year on year in US dollars and 62% for in local currency.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

These now represent 16.5% of total revenue, up from 11.2 a year ago, 14.3 a quarter ago. I will call out two points here. Financial services are the largest component accounting for 57% of our total digital revenue, growing strongly. We are pleased that the growth is broad based with solid contributions, across our entertainment, super apps, premium digital brands, ride hailing, and enterprise services. Effective April year, we also welcomed Ooklon to the VEON family.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Ooklon contributed $21,700,000 in revenue and $9.3 million dollars in EBITDA for the quarter. This marks a strategic milestone for us, reflecting our commitment to expanding our digital services footprint and unlocking new growth opportunities. In this page, we are outlining our continued progress on multiplay game, which accounts customers that use at least one digital service in addition to voice and data services we provide. Multiplay is a key feature of our digital operator growth strategy. Four g enables multiplay, and, hence, increasing four g adoption is a key driver.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

For this quarter, four g users increased 3.9% year on year. Four g penetration across our base is now 68%, up 4.6 percentage points. And it is this four g base that is increasingly shifting to multiplay given our extensive and relevant suite of digital products and services. The multiplay segment drives growth with stronger customer engagement, higher data consumption, more frequent usage of voice services, improved retention, and ARPU expansion. Our multiplayer customers continue to generate 3.7 times the ARPU of voice only subscribers.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

We are encouraged that this ratio continues to increase even as multiplayer adoption expense as a proportion of our total overall subscriber base. In the second quarter, 54.4% of our total revenues are generated by multiplayer customers, and this number grew 26.8 year on year in local currency terms. Let me provide you with an overview of our performance in local currency terms across our markets. We have delivered strong double digit revenue growth in all our markets except Bangladesh. While headline revenue growth for Beeline Kazakhstan is single digit, its revenues grew 14.5% like for like accounting for TNS plastic consolidation.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

In Bangladesh, we are encouraged that total revenues grew 5.1% quarter on quarter, and this indicates that a gradual recovery in consumer sentiment is underway. Our unique combination of network investments, fair value pricing, differentiated products and services, and strong digital growth are the drivers of this momentum for all of our markets. Our profitability trends across our markets are strong as well, reflecting on our focus on driving operational and cost efficiencies. Headline numbers for b nine Kazakhstan and Bengalin are impacted by tax regulatory changes, and adjusting for these organic trends continue to be strong. Finally, please note that our consolidated financial results for Ukraine include the full consolidation of Ukraine tower company, UTC, whereas the stand alone disclosures for Kiestar exclude UTC.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

On a stand alone basis, revenues in Ukraine grew 25.9%. EBITDA grew 23.6. For the first half, revenues in Ukraine, Kiev Star were up 35.8%, and EBITDA is up 38.5. We will take specific questions and discuss market specific issues in the question and answer session later. Let us now take a closer look at the continued momentum of our digital ecosystem.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

We are seeing strong broad based growth across our platforms with total digital monthly active users, which I will refer to as just users here on, reaching 119,700,000 for June, a 7% year on year increase. This is a strong result despite our entertainment users for June in Pakistan being impacted by typical seasonality in between cricket tournament schedules and underscores the overall healthy engagement levels. Our digital only user base is 29,300,000 and represents 24.5% of total digital user base. This highlights the growing appeal of our digital products, which are fast becoming go to solutions for consumers across competitive markets. Transaction value over the last twelve months reached $43,800,000,000 in our financial services solutions and is up 53% in local currency terms.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Let me provide you with more detailed look to our digital portfolio. Our financial services segment has increased by 28% to reach 40,700,000 users across all platforms. JazzCash's gross transaction value for quarter rose by 43% year on year. On a last twelve month basis, this represents an impressive 12% of Pakistan's GDP. This was driven by a 37.3% increase in total transactions and a 15% uplift in per transaction value per user.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Simply in Kazakhstan and Bepul in Uzbekistan continue to scale their roles as the financial layer of our digital ecosystem in the countries. Our entertainment platforms continue to build on customer engagement, notwithstanding the seasonality that is impacting monthly active users. As an example, Tamasha recorded 17,000,000 users for April 25 on the back of marquee cricket tournaments with the June 25 users reflecting typical seasonality in between tournament schedules. These platforms are actively leveraging local content creation to capitalize on the rising demand for locally relevant content. This also sets up compelling opportunities for advertisers to engage with our young, digitally savvy audiences.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Our super apps have now scaled to 45,000,000 users, reinforcing their role as primary digital entry points. Positioned as a one stop digital hub, these platforms are seamlessly integrating essential services from health care to entertainment and driving deeper engagement across our ecosystem. Ooklon's ride hailing service now operates in Ukraine and Uzbekistan and reached 3,500,000 users, reinforcing our presence in high frequency everyday digital life. Meanwhile, our premium digital brands spanning lifestyle, digital identity, and productivity tools saw users grow two times year on year to 2,300,000 as adoption deepened among digitally native customer segments. These platforms are designed to meet evolving customer needs with curated high value experiences underscoring their growing role in driving engagement, monetization, and digital leadership.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

I will now hand over to Brock, and he will take you through the financials in more detail. Brock?

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

Thank you, Khan. In '25, we delivered solid financial results with total reported revenue reaching $1,090,000,000, representing a year on year growth of 5.9% in US dollar terms and 11.2% in local currency. As previously noted by Khan, the quarter included the deconciliation of TNS Plus in Kazakhstan and the Uclone acquisition. On a like for like basis that adjusts for this, our revenues grew 6.3% in US dollar terms, underscoring the continued momentum across our operating markets. Direct digital revenues maintained their stroke trajectory, growing 56.6% year on year in US dollar terms to reach $180,000,000.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

Digital services now account for 16.5% of total revenues, further highlighting their growing relevance in Vuion's business model and the successful execution of our digital operators' strategy. Turning to profitability. Group EBITDA for '25 reached $520,000,000, reflecting a year on year increase of 13.2% or 19.6% in local currency. EBITDA margin continues to expand quarter on quarter and year on year and came in at 478% for second quarter. This is being supported by operating leverage and disciplined cost control.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

We note that our digital services, now at 16.5% of group revenue, continue to deliver attractive absolute EBITDA growth. While digital margins are structurally lower, their much lower CapEx intensity ensures comparable cash conversion relative to telecom services. As our mix continues to shift in this direction, we are focused on sustaining EBITDA growth at scale while enhancing group wide capital efficiency and long term cash flow generation. Now shifting our focus to key balance sheet figures. We finished June with $1,280,000,000 in cash, of which $206,000,000 sit at headquarters.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

The quarter on quarter change primarily reflects the successful bond repayments at HQ and the completion of Turkmen acquisition in Ukraine. During the quarter, we upstreamed $59,000,000 in net dividends from our operating companies. Gross debt stood at $4,630,000,000 at quarter end as new capitalized lease liabilities were partially offset by bond repayments in April and June. Net debt, excluding leases, was at $1,960,000,000 with our net debt to EBITDA ratio excluding leases at 1.32 times. Finally, as Kahn mentioned earlier, we have enhanced financial flexibility with the completion of USD $200,000,000 bond issuance due in 2029.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

The bond issuance was settled on July 15. Let me now hand the call back to Khan.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Thank you, Burak. While the current global environment presents both macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility, we remain confident in the resilience of our business and the strength of our operations. We have delivered a strong first half. Our teams continue to execute with discipline, and the underlying demand across our markets remains robust. All this gives us confidence in our outlook and positions us well for continued value creation.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

We are revising our outlook for the full year and now expect revenue growth of 13 to 15% and EBITDA growth of 14% to 16% for the year. Growth in underlying terms, which was the basis of our earlier guidance, is similar. As I highlighted earlier, underlying adjustments have become frequent and short lived given the pace of change across our business and are adding less and less value to our clear performance narrative. Hence, going forward, we will focus on headline numbers to provide you with a more consistent and transparent view of our trajectory. We continue to expect capital intensity, excluding Ukraine, in the 17 to 19% range, and these targets are based on a blended weighted average inflation rate of 8.2%.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Inflation has inched up in some of our markets, and it is a trend we are watching closely. In closing, we are pleased with the momentum we have delivered in the first half, and I'm excited about our prospects. We look forward to continuing to deliver on our strategy and creating sustainable value for our stakeholders. Thank you for your continued support and trust in VEON. We can now open the line for questions and answers.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please click on the raise hand button, which can be found on the black bar at the bottom of your screen. When it is your turn to ask a question, you will receive a prompt to be promoted as a panelist. Please accept, wait a moment, and once you have been introduced, you may unmute yourself, turn your video on, and ask your question. Written questions can be submitted on the webcast by using the ask a question tab at the top right of your screen.

[Operator]

As a reminder, we are allowing analysts one question and one related follow-up today. If you wish to ask more questions, please raise your hand again to rejoin the queue. We will wait one moment to allow the queue to form. Our first question comes from Nicholas Paton with Edison Group. Nicholas, please unmute your voice.

[Nick Paton, Analyst - Industrials at Edison Group]

Gentlemen?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Good afternoon, Nikos.

[Nick Paton, Analyst - Industrials at Edison Group]

Hi.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Yes. We can.

[Nick Paton, Analyst - Industrials at Edison Group]

Just checking. Excellent. I've got a couple of questions, and they're a little bit technical. The first one, I think you've mentioned in the press release, Engrow, the sale of which is is now closed. And I think you mentioned that there's the the the proceeds of 188,000,000 have already been received by Jazz, and there's another 375,000,000 to follow.

[Nick Paton, Analyst - Industrials at Edison Group]

Can you just take take me through technically how that's going to be fed up to the holding company? That's the first question. And maybe I'll slip in another one quickly while I'm on. The second one is on the technical effects of the SPAC for the third quarter financials of the listing of Kyiv Star. What should we expect in the third quarter numbers around that?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Nicolas, thank you very much for your questions. I will ask Burak to answer both of them. First, the Engro question and the Spark impacts.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

Technically, we will we are planning to upstream those cash, which we will receive in twenty months in equal installments with dividends that will enable us to release our reserves and equity. So so that's an answer to your question. Technically, we will get those through dividends upstream to HQ. Having said that, if we have the users for those cash in the country, we will make sure that we do the right allocation for those users in the country in terms of either debt repayments or potential m and a opportunities. And and on the Kevstar, can you repeat the question again?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

The impact of SPAC this SPAC to the financials?

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

The the impact of SPAC is going to be calculated based on the closing price of the stock on the first day of the trading, which is basically the difference between the valuation of the assets in the spec, which is the cash balance, which is around $200,000,000, and the the shares that we are going to use to purchase the spec. So the closing price will influence the impact of the transaction there.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

And, Nicolas, we expect in q three, of course, if the voting in the general assembly of Cohen Circle results in a positive outcome to close this deal plus the sale of our Kyrgyzstan operations. And as I mentioned, we expect, actually, these two transaction to result somewhere in between 150 to $200,000,000 of P and L impact, which noncash, and no impact and positive actual impact overall to the equity over.

[Nick Paton, Analyst - Industrials at Edison Group]

Okay. Yeah. I think I understand. Thank you very much.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Adrian Cundy with Emerging and Frontier Capital LLP. Adrian, you may now unmute your audio, turn your video on, and ask your question.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Adrian, we cannot hear you still.

[Adrian Cundy, SEA Consumer & Vietnam specialist at Emerging & Frontier Capital]

I was just can you hear me now?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Yes. We can now.

[Adrian Cundy, SEA Consumer & Vietnam specialist at Emerging & Frontier Capital]

Okay. Sorry if there's any background noise. I'm in a public location. Thank you for time today. One of the things I was wondering about was, your comments on four g adoption as an enabler of both, data revenue in the telco business, but also as a driver of, digital revenues. And in some of your markets, you're seeing, you know, Pakistan, you're seeing a very, very good rate of four gs take up. In other markets, more like Ukraine that you've alluded to, it's it's remained fairly stable at about mid sixties. So so maybe could you elaborate on what your strategies are to to drive that sort of four gs adoption up? And secondly, just at a broad level, at the group level, of four gs multiplayer and multiplayer users as a percentage of overall data revenue, how how what is that?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

K. Thanks, Adrian, for the questions. First of all, as you know, our markets, frontier markets, is really still not the right platform for five g services. So we have successfully adapted the strategy for four g for all, not five g for few. And over the last couple of years, we have built our four g base up to 68% of our total customer base.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Having said that, in markets, like Pakistan and Bangladesh, there are still 50,000,000 customers who are only utilizing feature phone services. And this actually, on one side, of course, a big opportunity because, ultimately, these customers will also migrate into smartphones and consumption of four g services. And we are well positioned to capture this additional organic driver growth for ourselves. With regard to our four g and four g multiplayer customer revenues, as I mentioned, multiplayer customers who are around 25% of our base generates 54% of our revenues. If I would add four g to that, I think we will reach close to 70% of our revenues as our customers for four g and four g multiplayer.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Mhmm. And our strategic direction to drive this is, first of all, to increase our coverage and quality of four g services, but also enter into smartphone business specifically designed for our digital services. And we have already started this in Kazakhstan where we are providing our customers smartphones preloaded with our applications like Yeezy, Simply, and Janumda, which is our super app for the market. We see a very high adoption rate of these smartphone enabled services and close to every single day selling about 1,500 smartphones to our customers in Kazakhstan. Similar approaches will be also applicable in other markets.

[Adrian Cundy, SEA Consumer & Vietnam specialist at Emerging & Frontier Capital]

Thank you. That was that was basically the the question I was gonna lead into is is, you know, in terms of device adoption, what strategies were you gonna deploy to to improve the the the four g, take up rate? But, going back to your press release, you mentioned in in in Kazakhstan, I think that you were deploying 4.9 g or or MIMO based four g networks. Where else are you doing that? And are you finding that that movement into four g MIMO and the improved bandwidth gets you without going all the way to five g, does that give you, is that also helping you in the customer acquisition by increasing capacity or or increasing effectively user user user experience improving user experience on on through throughput data throughput?

[Adrian Cundy, SEA Consumer & Vietnam specialist at Emerging & Frontier Capital]

Where else are you seeing are are you planning, and what should we be thinking about CapEx?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

So, Adrian, first of all, we will continue, of course, deploying the three important technologies that enhances the quality of the service we provide in our markets. Massive MIMO is one of them. Virtualization of the core is the second one, which drives the cost significantly down, and the third one is aggregation of carriers. And all these three technologies, when combined and enhanced with 2,300 megahertz, creates a unique service quality, which actually today successfully beats the five g operators in Kazakhstan. I'm very happy with the fact that if I look to the Net Promoter Scores in the country, the operator under the operating under the name EZ, which is actually our digital first application for the youth, has the highest NPS scores of 26 where all the operators are in single digit numbers.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

So what I see is four 0.9 g is today very well positioned to compete even against five g capabilities. The customer at the end of the day does not care if they consume the services, whether it be be music, games, or video, whether it is on Wi Fi, four g, five g, or in the future, satellite platforms, where we are also preparing ourselves getting ready for.

[Adrian Cundy, SEA Consumer & Vietnam specialist at Emerging & Frontier Capital]

Okay. Thank you. If I could squeeze one final question for Barak. Coming back to the de SPAC effects, am I right to think that the direct costs for KEVSTAR will be booked at that level and the balance of the costs on with the share price translation will be treated at the parent level, a VEON level? Is that correct? And do

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

you Yes. Sort of have correct.

[Adrian Cundy, SEA Consumer & Vietnam specialist at Emerging & Frontier Capital]

So can you sort of give me a a rough breakdown? You know, I mean, your direct SPAC costs are expected to be x, and then the subject to the closure, what the the balance will be at the at the Vyond level?

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

The Vyond level, as I stated, it will depend on the closing price on the day, but it will be somewhere between $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 based on the current value of the shares trading. And in terms of transaction costs, that that's going to be mostly booked into equity, actually. And the the amount of those transactions costs will be somewhere between 30 to $50,000,000.

[Adrian Cundy, SEA Consumer & Vietnam specialist at Emerging & Frontier Capital]

Okay. Alright. Thank you.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Thank you. Thank you, Adrian.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Matthew Harrigan at The Benchmark Company. Matthew, you may now unmute your audio, turn on your video, and ask your question.

[Matthew Harrigan, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

Thank you. You can hear me, of course. Right?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Yes. We can.

[Matthew Harrigan, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

Great. Always a little element of paranoia there, although I should be accustomed to it by now. I actually had a four nine MIMO question as well, but I think even more interesting this evaluation because you have a telecom business, I think probably has a sustainable mid single digit growth rate that isn't adequately valued relative its peers. And then you have the direct digital business close to $725,000,000 run rate now, obviously you're going be at a billion within a few quarters, so it's growing 56%. And that's it's really a gaggle of interesting businesses across different markets.

[Matthew Harrigan, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

I'm wondering, I don't know how familiar you are with tracking stocks. I suspect you are. They're not used very often, But this does seem like one instance where you could do some creative financial engineering and try to do a tracker for those digital businesses. Probably you could get evaluation almost tantamount to your market cap in some quarters. How do you clearly, you got Ukraine just in the process right now, but what do you have in the hopper and what do you kind of think about unlocking the valuation?

[Matthew Harrigan, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

It surely should be realized over a period of time, but it is complicated, very complicated company. And I clearly don't think you're getting a fair evaluation for the telecom business, let alone what you're adding on on the digital side.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Matthew, thank you very much for your question. We are a unique company. While we are unified when it comes to strategic direction, we have a decentralized way of execution. And if you look to our product portfolio, you will see local authentic brands serving our customers in different countries. And you are absolutely right.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

There is an opportunity here to crystallize the value. And when the right time comes, we will think about this, how to make it more transparent and more tangible. I think that right time will start phase by phase. First, I would like to see our direct digital revenues to surpass 20% of our total revenues to provide you more clarity about the marginality. And second, as we move on, certain type of businesses across the board, for example, financial services.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

We have JazzCash in Pakistan, which is actually already generating a billion dollar run rate for us, and we do have a simply business who is in Kazakhstan, which is ripe for growth, and people in Uzbekistan. I think, you know, at the right time, you will see us bringing the financial services, bringing the entertainment businesses, bringing the health care, ride hailing businesses under umbrellas where we will be much easier to communicate in terms of revenue values. But I think we are a couple of quarters ahead of of that position.

[Matthew Harrigan, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

And if you don't mind, it's interesting when you look at generative AI and McKinsey is putting out

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Yeah.

[Matthew Harrigan, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

You know, numbers that suggest, you know, mid single digit gains to global GDP and all that. And you would have to infer from that, you know, with the growth rates we have right now that GDP would be negative if it wasn't for AI, which is rather silly. But you're in a position where you can really see, you know, what the ROIs are and what you can deliver. If you look at AI specifically to the frontier markets that you're in right now and clearly Uzbekistan taking one example, you've got a very interesting business there more on the tech side. But how do you think AI affects markets with lower labor costs and lower penetrations of digital services and probably a lower you know, white collar component in the workforce.

[Matthew Harrigan, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

In other words, looking at the effect of the of AI on the economy in in Pakistan or Ukraine or Uzbekistan compared to The United States or or Britain or The Netherlands, which you which which you know well. And I know it's kind of a Sunday morning talk show type question, but I'd be interested to get your you're probably one of the few people who sees sees things.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Matthew, I think in emerging markets and frontier markets, sometimes advanced technologies are adapted in very creative ways. And I do expect that overall local economies will be impacted significantly with the adoption of what I call not artificial, but augmented intelligence. Let me explain it this way, especially from our industry perspective. A traditional telecom company's value proposition is selling number of minutes, number of gigabytes, number of SMSs. You would be surprised, but that business model still exists in many places.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

The digital operator sells services. Rather than selling gigabytes, provides entertainment, games, video, music, health care services, education services. Now what I call the AI generation telco will provide augmented skill sets to create capabilities for a doctor to be a better doctor, a teacher to be a better teacher. And imagine, as we provide these services, our value proposition for our customers will no more be number of gigabytes or even digital service. It will be a better version of themselves.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

That's what we are focusing on. That's why we are developing local language LLM models. We have already launched Kazakh LLM model. We are working on all the other countries. Probably the second one will be Ukrainian LLM, and we have already launched AgenTik AI capabilities, like a online tutor, which would help students with their homeworks, which would help them assess their level, develop education program, and do the certifications at the end.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

And these type of capabilities are getting very high levels of demand and adoption in the countries that we operate in. That's where I see our future value propositions will be centered around. And through our super apps, we're gonna integrate all these capabilities. So the agentic AI will be the main value proposition we provide to our customers.

[Matthew Harrigan, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

Thank you, Carl.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Thank you, Matthew.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Don Espy at Shah Capital. You may now unmute your audio and ask your question.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Don, you might be on mute. Still not hearing Don.

[Operator]

At the bottom of your Zoom screen.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Don't hear us. Can you hear us?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Can you hear us? Hello? Hi, Don. Yes, Don. Yes. Now we hear you.

[Don Espey, Director at Shah Capital]

Great. Great. Thank you. Yes. Thanks for taking our questions.

[Don Espey, Director at Shah Capital]

We've got a few questions actually. You touched on this topic with Matthew a few minutes ago, but hoping we can drill down a little more with the fintechs fintech assets specifically. The market's given little value to your fintech assets, JazzCash. So we're curious on your strategy to partially monetize Veon's 40,000,000 plus digital wallets.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Don, first of all, you for your for your trust and confidence confidence beyond. I think there is there is an echo somewhere. If you can maybe turn off your loudspeaker. I think you did. Thank you very much for that.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

So thanks a lot for your trust and confidence. And you're absolutely right. The especially if I take the Pakistan's JazzCash business. Actually, I have to admit that it's not only JazzCash. It's Mobilinq, Microfinance Bank, and JazzCash, where we have close to 21,000,000 of that 40,000,000 fintech customers that you mentioned.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

This is a business which actually lends 140,000 nano loans every single day, transacts 12% of Pakistan GDP, and concludes 60% of all mobile payments in the country. And, of course, we see the opportunity in terms of making this business much more tangible and crystallizing value. On the other side, the growth momentum is so high that every time I prepare an information memo, I have to repeat it before it gets finalized. So I'm a little bit patient in terms of developing the value and the right level of value representation before hurrying in moving into a crystallization. Clearly, we have lots of interested parties in our financial services business in Pakistan and also in other markets.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

But I think I would like to take our time a little bit to make sure that the business growth perfectly plays into the next couple of quarters. And, of course, later on, you will see us talking much more about this and also presenting it into the relevant investor circles.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Don, you had other questions?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Don, you are on mute again, I think.

[Don Espey, Director at Shah Capital]

When do you see your monthly ARPU close to $3 US? By the way, one peer in Africa is there even though per capita income of African countries is lower than Beyond's markets.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

It's a very good question, John. So let me take that. I think you need to mute. Thank you. So I'll break that question into, I think, three legs.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Right? I think Gan went into a lot of length on multiplay being the key driver to our ARPU and revenue growth strategy. And if you look at our disclosures on page four, we are disclosing that multiplay ARPU is actually at $3.4 now, and that's related to the $1.9 mobile ARPU. So I think our strategy is working. And as Khan pointed out in the slides, multiplayer ARPU is consistently multiple support, the voice only or the regular ARPU is.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

This multiplayer is only 32% of the subscriber base today. And as can't point it out again, one very important narrative in our story is how we continue to grow this proportion. And as that proportion grows, we do expect the overall ARPU to also start to climb. So that's, I guess, point number one. Point number two, smartphones.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

I think in most of our markets, it's probably one in two subscribers, if at that, that own smartphones. We spoke about the smartphone strategy that we have. We spoke about the handset strategy that we have. And as that gets going, I think the entire virtuous cycle of four g adoption, multiplay, and therefore ARPU accretion is again something that will go into play to driving that number. Thirdly, we're very focused on fair value pricing and obviously pushing our digital services.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

We look at selling services, not as selling tariffs, and that's also something that we are executing to very strongly in our market. So I guess long answer to your short question, these are the trends I'd expect to continue to support an ARPU move, which starts to kind of move closer and closer to what we are seeing at the multiplayer ARPU today.

[Don Espey, Director at Shah Capital]

Thank you. Thank you. That helps.

[Don Espey, Director at Shah Capital]

Thank you. And is VEON contemplating a KiVistar Jazz Beeline smartphones for better penetration and monetization of its digital apps?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

So, Don, thanks, Don. Thanks for that question. We have actually started actively doing this in Kazakhstan, and the early results are very promising. So you will be also seeing other markets that will bring tailor made phones for our customers so that they can consume our digital services more effectively.

[Don Espey, Director at Shah Capital]

Thank you. And last question. Thank you, Tom. Last question.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

No. Have one more second. One question on your later call.

[Don Espey, Director at Shah Capital]

Yes. It's unfortunate VEON still has a going concern language. How quickly do you see that going away?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Don, thanks a lot. Let me ask Burak to explain where we see this.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

Sure.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

I mean, the the main reasons for the going concern language on our twentieth is now, I believe, off the table. One of them was our access to capital markets, which with the syndicated loan and also with the private financing that we closed in July is off the table right now. And and the second one was the the fact that we were able to pay our $500,000,000 of bonds in April and June as we announced. So as both of those are off the table right now, I'm very optimistic that until the end of this year, hopefully sooner than later in q three, we will be able to make a disclosure in terms of getting that off our books.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Don, thank you very much for your questions.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Vincent Fernando with Zero One Investment Research. Vincent, you may now unmute your audio, turn your video on, and ask your question.

[Vincent Fernando, Founder & Executive Director at Zero One]

Hi. Thank you for the time. Can you hear me?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Yes. We can. Yep.

[Vincent Fernando, Founder & Executive Director at Zero One]

Okay. Great. I was just looking at the Yukon numbers. You generated $9,300,000 of EBITDA in the quarter, and it puts you on track maybe, moderate growth, hit $40,000,000 for 2025. You're doing 3,500,000 MAUs in a country of 38,000,000 people.

[Vincent Fernando, Founder & Executive Director at Zero One]

How do you see growth evolving for Yukon this year? Because it looks like it's becoming a pretty strong EBITDA generator. And then kind of in addition to that, how do you see extensibility for Yukon into mean, I know you have it in Uzbekistan. Have you looked at ride hailing in Kazakhstan? Thank you.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Sure. Thanks a lot, Vincent. So Uclone is really a very unique company, which is growing fast, and it is EBITDA accretive and cash flow generative and positive. And, basically, almost have 70% market share in ride hailing and delivery in Ukraine. Currently, they operate in 28 markets.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

When I say markets, understand that as cities. 27 of the 28 are in Ukraine, and one of them is in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Interestingly, Tashkent is the largest market in terms of market size. So I believe the potential for Uplon, not only for ride hailing, but also for delivery and linkage to the marketplaces that we will operate in our super apps is huge. And you will see us extending the capabilities of Uclone and Uclone team to other markets over the next four quarters.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

And what we see is every market that we will be entering could be completely from organic, or it can also be accompanied with some, also in market acquisitions and consolidations. But, this is a business where it is extremely accretive to the customer experience and also our super app strategies as we embed financial services and marketplaces to our super apps. As you can imagine, a product being sold on an ecommerce site, delivered at home, and maybe financed through our financial services offerings. This is the real full 360 value proposition that we are after.

[Vincent Fernando, Founder & Executive Director at Zero One]

Are you I mean, now that it's part of the group, will will the investment or the budget for expansion of marketing be increased? And have we in the growth that we've seen for Yukon for '2 q, has that started yet? That's what I'm trying to understand. Like, is it is that basically growth based on their previous budgeting and marketing, and then now they're part of the group? Or is that what you changed?

[Vincent Fernando, Founder & Executive Director at Zero One]

Are you still This is going to accelerate that? No. Thank you.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

This quarter's results are totally their organic performance, and they are performing very well on the markets that they were at. Now with the new era of combining our capabilities in the countries, and I as I have always said, our two unique advantages is our effective customer acquisition and customer acquisition cost, therefore, second, effective distribution mechanism to our super apps. We have not yet seen the results of combining these capabilities with the technological advantages of Ooplo. Therefore, I am very excited to see see the penetration levels actually evolve over the next quarters. And I would like to make sure that, you know, our advantage in customer acquisition and our advantage in additional service to an already existing customer will deliver huge value for us. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Christopher Hall with New Street Research. Christopher, you may now unmute your audio, turn your video on, and ask your question.

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

Yeah. Thanks, guys. I had a couple of questions. First one, just operational. My understanding is that the reason for, you know, the negative EBITDA in Kazakhstan is, you know, an increased tax that was introduced in Q3 last year.

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

So is is that correct? And does that drop off? And therefore, is there anything happening to underlying margins? Or should we expect from Q3 that Kazakhstan moves back to kind of EBITDA growth roughly in line with revenue growth? Yeah.

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

Maybe I'd I'd if you answer that, and then I'll come back with a follow-up.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Thank you, Chris. First of all, it was not about increased tax. It was actually a tax rebate due to our rural deployment of four g technology that government extended was. The low on that expired by the end of last year. And, actually, after our q two closure, the low passed again, retroactively affecting q one and q two.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

So in q three, you will see those numbers coming back in. And maybe, Burak, you can remind me how

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

much it will be impacting q three numbers. It's about $8,000,000 a quarter, so it will be, in total, about $16,000,000 that that we will have in q three.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

So the issue in Kazakhstan will be compensating in q three. Yeah. So The press president passed the law quite late, so it will only be impacted in q three.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

It will also impact revenue, not only, you know, EBIT.

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

Okay. But that means we'll be back to positive EBITDA in q three, basically, in Kazakhstan?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

We don't we don't have negative EBITDA.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

I mean, we have declined, but we don't have negative

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

No. Yeah. But positive EBITDA growth, basically. Yeah.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Yeah.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

Yep.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Yep.

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

So given that, I mean, should I mean, do you think the full year EBITDA guidance is a bit conservative on that basis given, you know, what you've seen in the first half? Mean, the implied second half is is a fair bit weaker, but you've got that benefit flowing through. Is there anything else happening that should be aware of in one of the other operations?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

You know, I think we are, as usual, you know, having a prudent stance on our projections.

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

Mhmm.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

And, you know, of course, as the operations show itself, we will come back to to you in next quarter to give you the highlight on that. But I think as as it stands now, it's it's the right conservative prudent approach that we have taken.

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

Okay. And and then maybe if I could have another one. I I think you're planning to announce a new shareholder remuneration strategy. And I just wondered, given that you've completed the third phase of the buyback, there's anything you can say on that, either around timing or sort of how you're feeling about shareholder remuneration both from a buyback or a dividend perspective, you know, if there's anything you can say around what we should be expecting there.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Chris, as I have mentioned in the last quarter, please expect the q three to be the time that we come back to the market about this. But what I would like to highlight is we are a growth company. As you can see, you know, we have huge opportunities to accelerate our growth, capture new markets, and we will, of course, balance this when we come back to the market and make our statements.

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

Okay.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Thank you.

[Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research]

Thank you. Yeah.

[Operator]

Next our next question comes from Theodore O'Neill with Litchfield Hills Research. Theodore, you may now unmute your audio, turn your video on, and ask your question.

[Theodore O'Neill, CEO at Litchfield Hills Research]

Thank you. First, congratulations on the good results in the quarter. My My question is, given the good growth you've had here in the digital side, how should investors think about this growth split between organic and inorganic?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Mhmm. On the digital side, I'm assuming your question. Right?

[Theodore O'Neill, CEO at Litchfield Hills Research]

Yes.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Well, you know, it's very simple. The 120,000,000 is a 57 percent year on year growth, and the only inorganic part there is the $21,000,000 coming from Ookla. And, you know, that means still a healthy growth is there organically as well.

[Theodore O'Neill, CEO at Litchfield Hills Research]

Okay. The follow-up is I was wondering if there was sort of a pipeline of of potential acquisitions in this area that you're looking at.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

I mean, I do not want to speculate on on that, but it is very clear that our digital services strategy and the way we see actually launching new services will result in organic and also inorganic efforts in all the markets. As I mentioned you, we do have a unified strategy, but we execute decentralized way in the markets that we are in that fits into the expectations of the customers the best. So but I don't wanna speculate on what those could be at this point.

[Theodore O'Neill, CEO at Litchfield Hills Research]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We have no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Anand Ramachandran for closing remarks.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Thank you so much. Actually, we do have some questions left. But, look, just respecting people's time and given that the hour is up, we would like to close the call here. We will revert back to you guys on the questions. And as always, any additional questions, do feel free to call us, email us.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Very happy to take all the questions and a lot of detail offline. So to conclude, thank you again for your support. It's been a good quarter. We appreciate your support and the time you spent with us. Thank you for your continued support, and see you again next quarter. Thank you.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director at VEON]

Thank you very much. Bye bye.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

Bye.

Participants

Executives

• Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer
• Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group CEO & Director
• Burak Ozer, Group CFO

Analysts

• Nick Paton, Analyst - Industrials at Edison Group
• Adrian Cundy, SEA Consumer & Vietnam specialist at Emerging & Frontier Capital
• Matthew Harrigan, Equity Research Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC
• Don Espey, Director at Shah Capital
• Vincent Fernando, Founder & Executive Director at Zero One
• Chris Hoare, Lead Analyst at New Street Research
• Theodore O'Neill, CEO at Litchfield Hills Research