Kyivstar Group Ltd. ($KYIV)

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.

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.