VEON Q1 2025 Earnings Report

VEON EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.36
• Consensus EPS: $0.83
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.53
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

VEON Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.03 billion
• Expected Revenue: $996.00 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$30.00 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

VEON Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 5/15/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 15, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 12:00AM ET

VEON (NASDAQ:VEON), a digital operator, provides connectivity and internet services in Pakistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. It offers mobile telecommunications services, including value added and call completion, national and international roaming, wireless Internet access, mobile financial, and mobile bundle services; data connectivity, cross border transit, voice, Internet, and data services; fixed-line telecommunications using intercity fiber optic networks; and Internet-TV using Fiber to the building technology. The company also sells equipment, infrastructure, and accessories. VEON Ltd. was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

VEON Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Strong Q1 financial performance: Revenues rose 8.9% in reported USD and 12.9% underlying local currency, with EBITDA up 13.7% (10.4% underlying) and revenues exceeding $1 billion.
• Direct digital revenues grew 50.2% year-on-year to $147 million, now representing 14.3% of total revenues, reflecting VEON’s accelerating shift towards digital services.
• Strengthened balance sheet via $23 million share buyback, $472 million bond repayment, $210 million term loan, cash at $1.8 billion, and net debt/EBITDA down to 1.2x.
• Progress on asset-light strategy with a $563 million tower infrastructure unlock in Pakistan and ongoing tower monetization initiatives across other markets.
• Regional headwinds persist, notably in Bangladesh where subscriber optimization led to lower counts despite stable revenues, and Kazakhstan’s EBITDA was flat due to the absence of one-off regulatory tax benefits.

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to VEON's First Quarter twenty twenty five Results Presentation. We ask that you please hold all questions until the completion of the formal remarks, at which time you will be given instructions for the question and answer session. Also, as a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. Anand Ramachandran, you may begin.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Hello. Good afternoon and good morning to everyone and thank you for joining us today for VEON's first quarter results for the period ending thirty first March twenty twenty five. My name is Anand Ravachandran, Corporate Development Officer and also Heading our Investor Relations function. Allow me to introduce the senior management in the room today. Next to me is Mr. Khan Terzioglu, our Group CEO and next to him is Mr. Burak Uzar, our Group CFO. Today's presentation will begin with the key highlights and business updates from Khan, followed by a discussion of financial results by Burak. We will then open up the line for Q and A. Do note that we may make forward looking statements during today's presentation, which involve certain risks and uncertainties.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

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 detailed in the company's annual report on Form 20 F and other recent public filings with the SEC. The earnings release and presentation, including reconciliations of non IFRS measures, can all be downloaded from our website. With that, let me now hand it over to Kant.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Thank you, Anand. Good morning, good afternoon, and welcome to everyone. I appreciate you joining us today for VEON's presentation of our first quarter twenty twenty five results. We have kicked off this year on a high note. Starting with our financial performance.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

We have achieved strong growth this quarter in reported U. S. Dollar terms. We grew our revenues 8.9%, while EBITDA rose 13.7. On a quarter on quarter basis, our revenues grew 2.8%.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Adjusting for the deconsolidation of TNS Plus, on a like for like basis, our revenue would have grown 11.7% and our EBITDA would have grown 15.5 In underlying local currency terms, our revenue performance was even more impressive, delivering a 12.9% increase, outpacing both inflation and nominal GDP growth. This quarter also saw our revenues hit above the $1,000,000,000 mark despite the deconsolidation of TNS plus business following its sale last year. On a second note, we continue to drive exceptional momentum in expanding our digital services portfolio. This quarter, our direct digital revenues grew by 50.2% and now represent 14.3% of our total revenues, up from 10.4% last year. We are accelerating our evolution into a services company with a telco license, underpinned by innovative enterprise architecture and accelerating integration of AI powered features in our digital applications as we deliver innovative solutions to customers in native languages.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Our asset light strategy remains a cornerstone of our value creation efforts. We are also progressing on initiatives to unlock infrastructure and tower value in all our markets. Our strategic partnership with Engrave Corporation in Pakistan to pool infrastructure assets is progressing well and will unlock $563,000,000 in value for us. We are also progressing on initiatives to unlock infrastructure and tower value in other markets and will keep you posted as the things develop. Last but not least, we continue to deliver for our shareholders.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

The second phase of our share buyback program commenced on March 25, and we have bought back $23,000,000 of shares, which represent around two thirds of the total allotment of $35,000,000 We have repaid $472,000,000 of our bonds in April 2025. Following this, our only remaining bond repayments prior to 2027 are the scheduled maturities due in June 2025. We have also made a successful return to the capital markets securing a $210,000,000 syndicated term loan. We are making good progress on Kevstar's listing on the NASDAQ, which we think will significantly enhance its visibility and profile. Finally, our most important asset, our people.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

We have strengthened our leadership capacity. The appointment of Johan Busse as CEO of Bundling is a good example. We have also deepened our management strength, moved to our HQ to Dubai and some key appointments for key positions. Now turning our attention to top line performance for the quarter. Our revenues grew by 8.9% in reported U.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

S. Dollar terms. Adjusting for the impact of identified items in first quarter of twenty twenty four, which I will detail on the next slide, underlying local currency growth was 12.9% year on year. This growth comes in an environment where inflationary pressures across our markets have eased further to 7.6% on a weighted average basis in the first quarter. This demonstrates our ability to drive fair pricing and yet capture higher consumer wallet share.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Moving to profitability. We reported EBITDA growth of 13.7 in U. S. Dollar terms with a 10.4% growth in underlying local currency terms that adjusted for the identified items. Our revenue and EBITDA performance are in line with our expectations and we are confident delivering our full year's guidance.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Let me now walk you through the identified items. As you can see from this slide, there are no adjustments to our performance for this quarter. The underlying year on year growth rates, however, are adjusted for the impact of two identified items from Q1 last year. The first one is the Ukraine cyberattack and the second one is the sale of our TNS plus business, which led to the business being deconsolidated from our accounts effective fourth quarter last year. Consequently, while our total revenue and EBITDA for the quarter rose 15.722.1% respectively in local currency terms, the underlying figures which account for these impacts reflect 12.9% growth in revenue and 10.4% in EBITDA.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Putting it all together, I am pleased to share a summary of our first quarter performance that highlights our continuing progress and strong growth. Our Telecom and Infrastructure segment contributed $880,000,000 and grew 4.2% year on year and 11.2% year on year in local currency terms. This showcases the capability to implement fair value pricing and unique differentiation of our digital products to keeping our customers engaged. If you would consider that TNS Plus as part of our telecoms business, adjusting for that, like for like growth for our telecom and infrastructure business would have been 7.1%, which is at least twice of our peers in the region. Our direct digital revenues continue to demonstrate the success of our digital operator strategy, growing 50.2% year on year to $147,000,000 On profitability, I am pleased to note that our EBITDA margins grew by 1.8 percentage points to 42.8% for the quarter, reflecting pricing controls and disciplined cost management.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Our CapEx intensity for the quarter was 13.1%. On a last twelve month basis, it is at 20.4 But excluding Ukraine, last twelve month CapEx intensity stands at 17.9% and is in line with our guidance. Last twelve month equity free cash flow is $387,000,000 We remain confident in our ability to improve this over the coming quarters as we optimize our investment phasing and drive operational efficiencies. Our balance sheet continues to strengthen. Net debt, excluding leases, has decreased to $1,800,000,000 and our net debt to EBITDA ratio, excluding leases, improving to 1.2 times.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Our cash position also improved. As of March 31, we hold $1,800,000,000 in cash, which includes $662,000,000 at headquarters level. Multiplay, which counts customers that use at least one digital service in addition to voice and data services is a key feature of our digital operator ten forty minutes growth strategy. Increased four gs adoption remains the key driver of growth as well. Our four gs users grew 3.3 year on year and four gs penetration increased by 4.3 percentage points.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

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 a voice only subscriber. We are encouraged that this ratio continues to increase even as multiplayer adoption expands and becomes a larger share of our overall subscriber base. In the first quarter, '50 '4 percent of our consumer revenues were generated by multiplayer customers and this is a 15% year on year growth. Let me now delve deeper into our digital services.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

These revenues are generated through our core digital services, including financial services, healthcare, education, entertainment and enterprise services such as AppTech, cloud and software development. I'm pleased to highlight our robust direct digital revenue growth, which rose 50.2% year on year in reported currency and by 54.3% year on year growth in local currency this quarter. Direct digital revenues are now 14.3% of total revenues, up from 10.4% a year ago. We expect this trend to continue as we expand our digital portfolio and capture customer demand across our markets. Moving on to our operating markets, let me provide you with an overview of our revenue and EBITDA growth in local currency terms across the markets.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Our Pakistan business builds on its strong performance from last year. Revenue growth at 20.3% and EBITDA growing at 13.2%. Our operations in Ukraine have begun the year with remarkable strength. Even after adjusting for the cyber attack from last year, the business achieved 20.2% revenue growth and 10.2% EBITDA uplift. Kazakhstan's revenue performance has been robust, growing 11.5% year on year, adjusting for the deconsolidation of T and S plus business.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

EBITDA this quarter was impacted by the absence of regulatory tax benefits for the quarter. Adjusting for this, EBITDA would have been flat year over year. In Bangladesh, steady quarter on quarter trends are encouraging and indicate that the worst of the macroeconomic headwinds may be behind us. Looking ahead, we remain hopeful that the actions of the interim government will support a sustainable recovery. Lastly, Uzbekistan delivered strong results with a revenue and EBITDA growth of 13.116.5% respectively.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Let us update you on each country's individual performance. In Pakistan, One driver to Jazz's impressive performance was the 12% growth in telecom and infrastructure revenues. This was supported by a 16% increase in four gs users and 14% rise in mobile ARPU and reflects the strength of Jazz's network and innovative digital services. This performance is even more impressive given the macro backdrop of 2.3% GDP growth and inflation lowering to 2.2%. Direct digital revenues surged 49.5% and now contribute 27.7% of total revenues in Pakistan.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

JazzCash revenues continues to grow strongly, where the year on year growth level is 66% and Mobilin Microfinance Bank grew revenues by 26%. Jazz's digital brands continue to scale strongly. Tamasha, Simosa and Ficker Free all posted significant increases in their monthly active users, which I will just refer to here as users. EBITDA growth was healthy at 13.2% even as EBITDA margins declined slightly to 42%. Jazz's EBITDA margin profile reflects a blend of high telecom margins and strong yet comparatively lower digital margins.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Last but not least, the strategic partnership with Engro Corporation on infrastructure sharing is progressing well. Once completed, Enro will pay just $188,000,000 and guarantee the repayment of EODR's intercompany debt of $375,000,000 Moving on to Ukraine. KS Star has delivered a strong quarter to kick off the year. Total revenues in Ukraine grew 49.5% year on year. Adjusting the cyber attack impact, revenue growth like for like was 20.2.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

This was driven by price adjustments, a stable four gs user base and growing adoption of Kiev Star's data and digital services, which is leading to higher mobile data consumption. Direct digital revenues grew by 141% year on year propelled by the success of Kiev Star TV and our healthcare platform HealthSee. EBITDA growth was 64% year on year after adjusting for the cyber attack impact. EBITDA growth was 10.2% taking into consideration of the EBITDA impact of the cyber attack. Normalized EBITDA margin declined to 55.6 for the quarter from 6.6% last year.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

This was primarily due to one off corporate restructuring costs associated with the proposed listing. The acquisition of Ooklon closed on 04/02/2025 and marks Kiev Star's expansion into a new era of digital consumer services in line with our digital operator strategy. Last but not least, we continue to make good progress on KSTAR's proposed NASDAQ listing through the business combination agreement with Cohan Circle at a valuation of US2.3 billion dollars This will position Kiev Star as the first pure play Ukrainian investment opportunity to be publicly listed in United States. Moving on to Kazakhstan, the headline year on year growth rates reflected the deconsolidation of TNS plus business. Excluding this, Telecom and Infrastructure revenues grew 9.4% year on year, reflecting a 3.5% increase in mobile subscribers and 1% growth in mobile ARPU.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

B Line's four point nine gs rollout and performance continues to resonate well with our consumers versus its five gs competitors in the market. Underlying EBITDA declined 4% year on year when adjusted for the T and S plus deconsolidation. This was primarily driven by the absence of regulatory tax benefits for the quarter and we expect this to come back in the following quarters. Looking ahead, we expect operational leverage and disciplined cost controls to provide the margin support. In line with group's digital operator strategy, the company's digital offerings continue to scale strongly with a 25.7% rise in users.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Beeline introduced Jallamda Super App that offers customers a range of solutions like financial services, entertainment, gaming and the seamless integrated one stop shop. It is seeing very good traction with consumers and its launch has significantly broadened our reach, resulting in substantial growth for Simply with its user base increasing 140%. Cascode continues to enhance its capabilities in deploying generative augmented intelligent applications and developing agentic AI solutions through large language model training. Last but not least, I am pleased to note that Beeline Kazakhstan has rolled out our V. Ad tech capabilities across some of its products and is now serving ads to customers using these technologies.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Turning to Bangladesh. Quarter on quarter revenue stability suggests that the negative impact of macro challenges has been stabilized. Bundling has strategically optimized its distribution and customer acquisition model, resulting in a lower subscriber count, but a significantly higher quality. Importantly, this has had virtually no impact on revenues or market share, while also beginning to deliver structural cost efficiencies. Even in this challenging backdrop, direct digital revenues are growing strongly and highlight the potential for digital services in the market.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Bungalink's ability to leverage this potential to drive growth will continue in the following quarters. Bundling will maintain its focus on operational agility and digital growth, continuously adapting to navigate evolving market landscape. Looking ahead, we are optimistic that the worst of macroeconomic impact is in the past and bundling is well positioned to drive sustainable long term growth. Moving on to Uzbekistan. Beeline Uzbekistan has started off strongly to build on last year's efforts to strengthen its market position.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Revenues rose 13.1% year on year, supported by a targeted shift towards higher value subscribers, resulting in improved ARPU. EBITDA grew by 16.5% year on year and reflects the benefits of fair value pricing. Margins expanded by 1.1 percentage points to 37.9%. The launch of our super app Humvee, which has 4,300,000 monthly active users, is powering usage of all digital platforms, including Beeple, our financial services arm and Keenum and BTV, our entertainment platforms. This is driving strong growth in direct digital revenues and highlights the strategic importance of digital innovation in fueling Beeline's long term growth ambitions.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

CapEx declined 78% year on year with a CapEx intensity of 12.2% as the aggressive four gs rollout program from last year has been completed. Beeline will now focus on leveraging this investment into higher and sustainable revenue growth and profitability. Let's take a closer look at the continued momentum of our digital ecosystem. We are seeing strong broad based growth across our platforms with total digital users reaching 125,100,000, a 26% year on year increase. Notably, our digital only user base, basically customers only using our digital service with no telecom services attached, has expanded even faster, surging 58% to $32,400,000 This accelerating adoption highlights the growing appeal of our digital products and world class competitiveness.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

These are fast becoming go to solutions for consumers across the markets. I'm pleased to report that our SuperOps see higher levels of engagement fueled by this expanding and increasingly active user base. Taking a more detailed look at our digital portfolio, our Financial Services customer base increased by 33.5% this quarter, reaching 40,000,000 users across all state platforms on the slide. In Pakistan, JazzCash continues to scale rapidly with users rising to 20,600,000. We are issuing 141,000 digital loans every single day, and this number is up 74% year on year.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Gross transaction value for the quarter rose by 60% year on year over an inflation of 2.2%, represents an impressive Pakistan. This was driven by a 48% increase in total transactions and 23% uplift in transaction volumes and pricing per user. JazzCash's retail network continues to expand with over three forty active merchants and 120,000 active agents. Simply, Kazakhstan's second largest digital financial services operator registered 140% rise in its user base to 3,300,000. In Uzbekistan, Beepul continued to build on its strong momentum as its customer base grew 150% to over 2,300,000 users.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Our entertainment platforms capitalize on the rising demand for locally relevant content by offering digital entertainment apps that deliver enhanced user experience. These platforms not only support local content creators, but also offer compelling opportunities for advertisers to engage youth and digitally savvy audiences. Tamasha in Pakistan and Toffee in Bangladesh saw notable increase in customer engagement, fueled by strong leadership during the ICC Cricket Championship. KIA Star TV in Ukraine delivered strong growth and its user base rising 35 year on year to reach 2,000,000. This momentum was driven by an enhanced content lineup, including the launch of a refreshed sports section within the application.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

BTD and Kinom, our digital platforms in Kazakhstan, have maintained steady growth as well. Our super apps continue to gain strong traction across our markets with users up 21.7% year on year to 45,100,000. Positioned as one stop digital hub, these platforms are becoming the go to destination for our customers seamlessly integrating essential services from healthcare to entertainment to e commerce and driving deeper engagement across our ecosystem. Meanwhile, our premium digital brands are becoming increasingly central to our digital strategy, expanding their reach and relevance across markets reaching 1,800,000 users. 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 Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Consider these premium digital brands as MVNOs on our own network. I will now hand over to Brak, who will take you through the financials in more detail.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

Brak? Thanks, Pan. In first quarter twenty twenty five, we achieved robust revenue growth, with total revenue passing the $1,000,000,000 market cap, an 8.9% increase year over year or 15.7% in local currency. As Kaan has explained earlier, after adjusting for the impact of the cyber attack in Ukraine and the deconsolidation of TLS Plus in Kazakhstan, our underlying revenue grew by 12.9%. Direct digital revenues continued their strong growth trajectory, rising 50.2% year over year to $147,000,000 and now comprise 14.3% of our total revenues.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

This highlights the growing importance of our digital platforms in driving future value and diversification across our portfolio. Turning to profitability. EBITDA rose 13.7% year on year, reaching $439,000,000 Adjusting for the one off impacts in the prior year, underlying EBITDA growth stood at a solid 10.4%. EBITDA margin expanded by 1.8 percentage points, reflecting a combination of strong top line growth, disciplined cost control and increased operating leverage. With digital at 14.3% of our revenues now, our margin profile is starting to reflect the combination of higher telco margins coupled with strong but comparatively lower digital margins.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

We are comfortable with this margin profile as we expect the combination to continue to drive better absolute EBITDA growth. We also note digital businesses have much lower CapEx intensity relative to telco. Hence, we would expect cash generation for both telco and digital to be very comparable as a proportion of revenues. Now shifting our focus to key balance sheet figures. We finished March with $1,800,000,000 in cash, a 5% increase quarter on quarter, of which $662,000,000 sits at the HQ level.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

We upstreamed $127,000,000 of net dividends from our operating companies in the quarter. Net debt, excluding leases, declined to $1,800,000,000 and helped our net debt to EBITDA ratio. Excluding leases, improved to 1.23 times. As Kaan mentioned earlier, subsequent to thirty first March, we have repaid the USD472 million of April 2025 bonds. Our 2025 notes will also be repaid at maturity in June.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

There will be no additional maturities until 2027. The US210 million dollars syndicated loan has also been drawn down in early April for general corporate purposes. I will now hand it back to Kaan.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Thank you, Burak. Our Q1 performance leaves us with strong momentum in 2025. Despite the turbulence in the global markets, we are confident that a combination of potentially lower oil prices and softer dollar will be accretive to business in frontier markets. At the same time, inflation rates of our footprint are also trending lower and presents a headwind. Amidst all this, I'm pleased to reaffirm our full year outlook, which is based on a projected weighted average inflation rate of 8.2.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

We are on track to deliver 12% to 14% underlying local currency revenue growth for the full year. We expect underlying EBITDA to grow by a higher 13% to 15% assisted by operating leverage and effective cost control. We continue to see CapEx intensity in the 17% to 19% range for the year. As I mentioned earlier, inflation has trended down further since we originally set our guidance, down to 7.6% as of Q1. This is a trend we are watching carefully.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

In closing, the first quarter has set the tone for what promises to be a defining year for Veom, and I'm excited about our future 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 our company. We can open the line for Q and A on that now.

[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, you will hear your name called and receive a message on your screen asking to be promoted to a panelist. Please accept, wait a moment, and once you've been promoted, you may unmute your video and audio and ask your question. As a reminder, we are allowing analysts one question and one related follow-up question today.

[Operator]

Written questions can be submitted on the webcast by using the Ask a Question tab at the top right of your screen. We will wait one moment to allow the queue to form. Thank you. Our first question comes from Matthew Harrigan. Matthew, please unmute your line, unmute your video and ask your question.

[Matthew Harrigan, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

Thank you. I assume you can hear me. You've got a really nice kind of embedded growth mechanism with the multiplayer customers. I think it was 3.4x the revenue of voice only. And clearly, you've got a lot of penetration headroom.

[Matthew Harrigan, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

I'm curious what percentage of that is due to their use of the multiplayer apps versus actually generating also higher telecom revenues? And then secondly, your entertainment apps, I mean, feels like they're great as far as adaptation of the Pacific markets. I mean, the one U. S. Or global player that really does a very good job in local content clearly is Netflix.

[Matthew Harrigan, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

I know they're somewhat active in Pakistan. And could you talk about Tomaso versus Netflix in terms of the local programming capabilities? I realize the business isn't going to be a monopoly tech type characteristic in terms of having the entire entertainment market, but just your positioning relative to Netflix and Pakistan and maybe where else you have entertainment apps. Congratulations on the results. They were outstanding again. Thank you.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Matthew, thank you very much. And thanks a lot for your quick note on the results. I really appreciate that. Now you're right. The multiple customers, which we define as customers who use our voice and practically connectivity service on data, but on top of that consume at least one of our digital services.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

These customers generate 3.7 times more ARPU compared to customers who only use voice services or who only use data services. So this multiplayer concept allows us actually to serve the customer with multiple different services. What we experienced in this type of an environment, the data consumption of these customers are three times higher. And even we see a significant positive impact on the times voice services are utilized. And needless to say, these customers tend to have a much less churn rate compared to the single play customers.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

So we are actually at least one out of two our customers are in multiplay format, actually around 45%, and they generate much higher revenues for us. And we do expect as we deploy our digital services and this penetration increases, the revenue harvesting capability we have will also increase. Now coming to the question about Netflix. Most people in Pakistan have heard about Netflix, but the ability to pay a subscription through a credit card is not that common. There are very few people with a credit card.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

And the ones they have, if Central Bank allows payments, they can continue watching Netflix. I do not necessarily see Netflix as a competitor. We love our customers who are subscribers to Netflix. They are generating lots of revenues for us as well. But clearly, for a population of two forty million, our content with linear TV and cricket games is much more interesting and relevant.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

So I do not see a substitution impact with Netflix, but a strong complementary positioning. And of course, our customer base of 20,200,000 in the Tamasha platform is not comparable with their numbers. So I see actually a fantastic market where we don't only compete, but we coexist and we drive the revenue potential for the entertainment industry in the country.

[Matthew Harrigan, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

Thank you, Connor.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bilal Yam at Mashreq. Bilal, please unmute your line, unmute your video and ask your question.

[Bilal Khan, VP - Senior Sales & Portfolio Manager at Mashreq]

Bilal, we can't hear you still.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Hi, don't we move on to the

[Bilal Khan, VP - Senior Sales & Portfolio Manager at Mashreq]

next Hi, good afternoon.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

You can

[Bilal Khan, VP - Senior Sales & Portfolio Manager at Mashreq]

hear me. Am I audible now?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Yes, yes, we can hear you now, Vilan.

[Bilal Khan, VP - Senior Sales & Portfolio Manager at Mashreq]

First of all, congratulations, Dan, on Q1 twenty twenty five numbers and very impressive to see the growth rate. My question would be slightly on the data centers the infrastructure. While I understand, BEYOND is a asset light quality network provider. But if you look at the current investors' interest or the geographical trend, and specifically speaking in Middle Eastern countries, data center is the name that most of the digital providers are looking ahead. Would you like to comment a bit on your strategy around this particular assets?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Sure. Actually, I'm very happy to see the such a robust investment climate for data centers because clearly these are exactly the type of partners we need to run our asset light business. Now if you look to the type of investments we do, we have a 900 people strong technology company called Kascode in Kazakhstan. And we employ the best linguistic experts, data analysts, scientists and software development teams. And this team's objective is really to create services for enterprise customers.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Of course, the cloud offers we have and the software as a service offer we have and augmented intelligent offers will need a data center to host. We today have our backbone data centers, but in the future, we expect to partner with the investors of next generation data centers as well, sticking to our asset light strategy.

[Bilal Khan, VP - Senior Sales & Portfolio Manager at Mashreq]

Thank you so much.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Thank you, Vilan.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Nicholas Patton from Edison Group. Nicholas, please unmute your line, unmute your video and ask your question.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Nicholas, we can't hear you.

[Operator]

Okay. We will move on to the next question. Our next question comes from David Lopez from New Street Research. David, please unmute your line, unmute your video and ask your question. If you could just unmute your line, David, just because you're muted at the moment.

[David-Mickael Lopes, Communications Services at New Street Research]

Yes. I was muted.

[Operator]

Thank

[David-Mickael Lopes, Communications Services at New Street Research]

Thank you. Okay. Hi. You. My question, hi.

[David-Mickael Lopes, Communications Services at New Street Research]

A couple of questions on Ukraine. I think you had an impressive ARPU growth there this quarter and a very good data growth. I was wondering what are the other drivers behind that? And especially Ukraine, I was wondering what's the plan with the towers there? Thank you.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

David, thanks for the question. As you have seen, the nominal revenue growth in Ukraine was 49.5. And of course, the ARPU calculations reflect that. But if you adjust for the cyber effect that happened in Q1 last year, actually the real growth is around 20% plus. So the impact of this could be a little bit higher on the ARPU calculations that you see.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

But needless to say, still there is a 20% growth over a stable customer base, which actually reflects our capabilities to do fair value pricing and increase our prices, thanks to the digital assets we have, which can keep the churn rates under control. So that's really an important observation and thanks to you for raising that. With regard to our tower assets, as you know, we have separated our tower assets almost a year ago in Ukraine and they are directly owned by ZEON. And our Ukraine Tower Corporation, which is today the owner of almost 8,000 towers is separate from our operating company. And I thank you also for allowing me to highlight this because this tower company is not part of the listing process that we have today for our operating company in Ukraine.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

And the operating company results should be interpreted in a way that the tower results should be separated because we report them consolidated in this report. And for that, we will follow-up and make sure that information is available as we publish separate stand alone results for Kiev Star.

[David-Mickael Lopes, Communications Services at New Street Research]

Okay. Thank you.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Thank you.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Hi, Nicholas.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Are still listening.

[Analyst]

Yes. My apologies. I dropped off there for a second. Can you hear me now?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Yes, we can hear you.

[Analyst]

I've got one question split into three parts, all on Ukraine. Apologies if you I didn't catch all of the last answer. But firstly, CapEx, obviously, that's one area of your CapEx, which has gone up quite a lot over the last year. What's the guidance going forwards for CapEx in Ukraine? And how does that affect your group CapEx?

[Analyst]

That's question 1i. II is on digital revenues. It's difficult not to be impressed with your 50% growth. Can I just check that, that doesn't include Yukon? I'm assuming it doesn't as you consolidated from the I think it was the April 2.

[Analyst]

But is that an organic increase in digital revenues, let's say? And question one, I I I is on the listing timing. Do you have any more detailed guidance on exactly when you expect to do the IPO? Thanks.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Thank you, Nicolas. Let me start with the CapEx. Of course, the CapEx numbers in Ukraine heavily reflect our kind of extraordinary out of normal investments on battery and generators due to the sustainability of the energy grid. So this has been driving our kind of excessive CapEx spend in Ukraine. But as you can imagine, in a war environment, this is quite normal.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

And it did increase our overall CapEx to revenue ratio over 20% last year above our guidance. If you exclude that actually, we are well within our guidance and we expect to continue to do so. The digital revenues have increased. But again, keep in mind that the nominal overall revenue growth in Ukraine was 49%. So actually, the digital revenues grew in line with that.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Clearly, the numbers that you look does not reflect the cyber attack impact, which has a major impact in Ukraine last quarter. And finally, on the listing side, we are in line with the process. As you may can as you can see, our agreement with Cohen Circle, which involves CCIR, a stock that is already active in NASDAQ has had a good appreciation to almost 30%. And I do expect that this process to complete itself in Q3. And the trading should start by that time. I do not see any problems so far.

[Burak Ozer, Group CFO at VEON]

Just to answer your Uclone question, yes, they are not included as of yet in Q1 results.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Starting with Q2, we will see.

[Analyst]

That's great. You, guys.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Thank you.

[Analyst]

Makes sense. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ali Zadi from Inam. Ali, please unmute your audio and video and ask your question.

[Ali Zaidi, Equity Research Analyst at Inam]

Hi, guys. Thank you for this opportunity and also congratulations on your results. I have a question. Given the success of JazzCash in Pakistan, does it make sense to like aggressively roll out a fintech product in other markets? And if yes, what kind of challenges do you think you guys can encounter in that?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Ali, thanks a lot for the question. As you can imagine, services is one of our key focus areas. I think Pakistan has demonstrated how effective we can be in this particular area. And we do actually have already financial services products in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Deep Pool in Uzbekistan and simply in Kazakhstan. The two markets that I'm very excited to introduce financial services is Bangladesh and Ukraine.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

And we are focusing on regulatory issues there to be able to be providing the services our customers deserve. And we will not give up on that, and we will continue exploring those opportunities. Thank you, Ani.

[Ali Zaidi, Equity Research Analyst at Inam]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ahmed Mustafa from Inam. Ahmed, please unmute your audio and video and ask your questions.

[Ahmed Mostafa, Investment Analyst at Inam]

Hello?

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

We can hear you, Ahmed.

[Ahmed Mostafa, Investment Analyst at Inam]

Yeah. Congratulations on the results, and thanks for the presentations. I'd like to ask two questions, if you may. First is, can you give us a rough estimate if you direct digital revenue by product vertical, like entertainment and health care, etcetera? And where do you see those direct digital revenue as a share of total revenue per year end? You.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Amit, thank you very much. Based on the request that we have received from our investors and analysts, we have given the overall numbers for revenues for direct digital revenues. Give us a couple of more quarters for us to detail that on disclosures so that we can not only break down those in terms of different service lines, but also give an indication on the marginality as well. But I will pass on that part of the question for the time being, considering that anything below 10% you started to give, it may be up and down too much. I want to give you very, very solid and sustainable figures and we will need a couple of more quarters for that.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Now looking to my expectation about how direct digital revenues will evolve. I would expect every quarter we would improve by one percentage point in terms of our penetration in the total revenues. That's what we have been experiencing, and I'm very happy with that progress.

[Ahmed Mostafa, Investment Analyst at Inam]

Thank you so much.

[Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer at VEON]

Thank you, Amit.

[Operator]

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

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

Great. Thank you, Katie. Well, guys, thank you so much for taking the time to participate in this first quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. As always, any questions do keep them coming. Myself, the team here is all ready to answer that.

[Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer at VEON]

And we look forward to your continued support and trust in VEON. Thank you again for your time.

Participants

Executives

• Anand Ramachandran, Corporate Development Officer
• Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, Group Chief Executive Officer
• Burak Ozer, Group CFO

Analysts

• Matthew Harrigan, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC
• Bilal Khan, VP - Senior Sales & Portfolio Manager at Mashreq
• David-Mickael Lopes, Communications Services at New Street Research
• Analyst
• Ali Zaidi, Equity Research Analyst at Inam
• Ahmed Mostafa, Investment Analyst at Inam