VEON Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 31, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: VEON raised its full-year outlook, now expecting revenue growth of 15%–18% and EBITDA growth of 9%–12%, citing stronger-than-expected organic performance and digital momentum.
  • Positive Sentiment: Second-quarter revenue increased 17% to $1.27 billion, while digital revenue surged 53.6% and digital EBITDA rose 66.2%; management said digital margins reached 36% and the businesses are generating significant cash with limited capital intensity.
  • Positive Sentiment: Cash generation strengthened materially, with first-half equity free cash flow up 47.5% to $320 million. VEON also completed a $1.4 billion bond offering, reduced refinancing risk, and committed to canceling at least $100 million of shares annually.
  • Negative Sentiment: Kazakhstan’s margins were pressured by a 6-percentage-point VAT increase and accounting effects from bundled smartphone sales, while Bangladesh faced substantial energy disruptions that reduced national data consumption.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management highlighted further growth opportunities in financial services, including expanding JazzCash in Pakistan, launching payment services in Bangladesh in the third quarter, pursuing digital banking licenses, and extending satellite connectivity partnerships into additional markets.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
VEON Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Hello, welcome to VEON's 2Q26 results presentation. Today's presentation will be followed by a Q&A session where we will take questions from the room as well as from virtual attendees. For those of you who have joined the Zoom webinar, if you'd like to ask a question, you can use the raise hand button, which can be found on the black bar at the bottom of your screen, at any time to join the queue to ask a question. You'll be called upon during the Q&A session. For those of you watching on the webcast, if you'd like to submit a written question, please use the Ask a Question tab at the top right of your screen. These questions can also be sent in at any time during the presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today.

Operator

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

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

Thank you, Lucy. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone joining us for VEON's second quarter results. We are the largest NASDAQ-listed company in Dubai. We are taking this opportunity to host this call out of New York and are very pleased to be able to doing that. We thank the people in the room who've joined us. Thank you for the people who've joined us on the webcast. My name is Anand Ramachandran, Chief Corporate Development Officer. Let me introduce management in the room. Next to me is Kaan TerzioÄŸlu, our Group CEO. Next to him, Burak Ozer, our Group CFO. As usual, Kaan will begin with the strategic and operational highlights, followed by Burak with a review of our financial performance. We'll then open up the call for Q&A. Before we begin, do note that today's presentation contains some Foward-Looking statements involving risks and uncertainties.

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

Further details are available in our SEC filings, including our Form 20-F. Our earnings release and presentation are also available on our investor relations website. With that, let me hand the call over to Kaan.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you, Anand. Good morning, everyone. Exciting to have you in the room here in New York and do this earnings release here. Beyond excellent financial results, this quarter marks another important milestone in VEON's transformation. We are becoming much more than a telecommunications company. Today, VEON is building one of the world's largest digital ecosystems across emerging markets, combining connectivity, financial services, digital consumer platforms, and enterprise solutions. Our telecom networks connect more than 150 million customers. Our digital platforms deepen those relationships every day. The result is stronger growth, stronger cash generation, and increasing shareholder returns. Most importantly, today's results give us the confidence to raise the outlook for the year. Let me explain how we think about VEON today. Everything begins with connectivity. Connectivity is not the destination. It is our foundation. It is our competitive advantage.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

It gives us scale, it gives us distribution edge, it gives us trust, and it gives us daily engagement with millions of customers. On top of that foundation, we have built three digital growth engines: financial services, digital life, digital enterprise. They reinforce one another. Every new service strengthens the customer relationship. Customers stay longer. They spend more. They generate more data. Better data improves AI. Better AI creates better products. Better products create more cash. That cash allows us to invest again. That is the VEON flywheel. Once you understand the flywheel, results are much easier to understand. Growth is broad based. Telecommunications continues to grow twice fast compared to traditional players. Digital is growing substantially faster, multiple times faster. Digital now contributes almost 27% of our total revenues. Cash generation continues to improve. Since August 24, we have already bought back $183 million worth of shares.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Today, we are taking the next step. Starting with this year, we commit to canceling at least $100 million of shares every year, not as a one-time action, but as a sustainable capital allocation framework. I am particularly pleased with the consistency of our execution. That consistency is why we are raising our full-year guidance. A little color. Reported EBITDA growth was affected by three exceptional accounting items. Bangladesh benefited from a provision release last year. Profit comparisons include the Pakistan tower transaction last year. This year, it includes the non-cash fair value adjustment on Kyivstar Group warrants. If you adjust for these items, our underlying business is even stronger. Revenue grew 18%, EBITDA grew more than 15%, like for like earnings per share actually grew 88% year-on-year. This is the clearest measure of our true momentum.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

On the subject of consistency, Pakistan continues to deliver outstanding performance. Ukraine continues growing with extraordinary circumstances. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Bangladesh all delivered. This matters. It tells us that VEON operating model is becoming repeatable across markets. Only a few years ago, digital represented a relatively small part of VEON. Today, digital has become one of our main growth engines. Our digital platforms now reach more than 227 million customers. Importantly, all three digital businesses are profitable. Financial services, digital life, digital enterprise. They scale efficiently, they require less capital, and they generate attractive returns. Digital revenues grew more than 53%. Digital EBITDA increased more than 66%. Digital is now generating profits and cash more than telecom business. Financial services best demonstrates how the flywheel works. We do not begin with lending. We begin with engagement. Customers use payments every day. Daily engagement builds trust. Trust creates data.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Data improves underwriting. Underwriting enables lending, insurance, and wealth management. Pakistan demonstrates this model at scale. JazzCash has evolved from a payments application into a complete financial ecosystem. Our acquisition of TPL Insurance represents another important milestone in that journey. Our Mastercard partnership will accelerate AI-enabled financial products across every market. If there is one slide I hope you will remember, it is this one. Connectivity brings customers, and digital deepens engagement. Engagement increases loyalty. Higher cash generation funds better products. Every turn of the wheel strengthens the next. That is why multi-play customers already generate significantly higher value, and why we believe we are still in the early chapters of the story. With that, I will hand over to Burak to take you through the financials in more detail. Burak?

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

Thank you. In second quarter, revenue grew 17% to $1.27 billion, with growth across all of our five markets. First half revenue also grew 17% to $2.47 billion. 7.6% to $929 million, driven by disciplined pricing and rising customer engagement. Digital revenue grew 53.6%, reaching $342 million, reflecting broader adaptation across platforms and products, plus our recent acquisitions. EBITDA is $552 million, up 6.2% at a 43.4% margin. First half EBITDA grew 11.5% to $1.07 billion. Telecom and infrastructure EBITDA were $428 million, down 3.8% at a 46.1% margin. As Kaan noted earlier, the year-on-year comparison reflects last year's Bangladesh provision release. Digital EBITDA grew 66.2% to $123 million. Digital is less capital intensive than telecom, and that's driving strong cash conversion as it scales.

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

Profit and EPS for the period reflects $489 million of gain on the Pakistan tower sale in second quarter of last year, and a $22 million fair value loss on KGL warrants in this quarter. Cash generation was strong in the period. Operating cash flow rose 238% in the quarter to $463 million, and 51% for the first half to $860 million. Equity free cash flow after leases and licenses grew 47.5% for the first half to $320 million. EFCF for the second quarter was impacted by prepayment of taxes in Pakistan that will not reoccur. Turning the balance sheet and capital allocation. We ended the quarter with $2.2 billion in cash, including $468 million at headquarters. Net debt, excluding leases, was $1.8 billion, with lease-adjusted leverage at 1.1 times.

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

We completed a $1.4 billion bond offering this quarter, substantially addressing our 2027 maturities ahead of schedule and extending average headquarters debt maturity beyond four years. With that, I'll hand the call back to Kaan.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you, Burak. Let me return to capital allocation. Since August 24, we have bought back $183 million of shares. We delivered exactly what we said we would. Now we are institutionalizing that discipline. Beginning this year, we will cancel at least $100 million of shares annually. Returning capital to shareholders is now part of our long-term financial framework. We are seeing strong execution. Digital is scaling faster than expected. Cash generation continues to strengthen, and as a result, we are increasing our guidance. Revenue growth is now expected to be 15%-18%. EBITDA growth is now expected to be 9%-12%. Our capital expenditure outlook remains unchanged. These revisions reflect confidence in the underlying strength of our business. Looking ahead, please join us at our Capital Markets Day in N.Y. on November 16th.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

There we will present the next chapter of VEON's long-term strategy and value creation. Let me leave you with one thought. Connectivity provides the foundation, digital creates the growth, and the flywheel generates the returns. Our second quarter results demonstrate that this strategy is working, and I believe we are only at the beginning. Thank you very much. Operator, now we can take the questions.

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

Operator, may I suggest we start with questions in the room. Then I'll probably queue you in to get questions from online attendees.

Operator

Thank you.

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

May I start in the room, would be great if you could put your hand up. There is a mic which will come around to you. If you could state your name and your institution and then your questions, that would be great. Tim, go ahead.

Jesse Sobelson
Jesse Sobelson
Analyst at BTIG

Good morning. Jesse Sobelson with BTIG. Of the values increase, how much was currency and how much was organic, and where are you specifically seeing a performance versus original expectations?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

As I mentioned, consistency was one of the key drivers. You may notice a little bit out of cycle results from Kazakhstan, this is normal, and it is fundamentally due to the VAT regulations change in the country, which was a six percentage points increase. In concept of how much of it is devaluation, how much is performance. Our business model is very simple. The way to do business in frontier markets, in emerging markets, relies on your ability to continuously, in a disciplined way, to adjust your prices with nominal GDP growth. We rely on the fact that GDP and GDP growth is the best indicator of our wallet share success. Devaluation and inflation will converge in three, five, seven-year cycles. We are keeping our discipline on that front, and currently we are expecting actually about 9.5% inflation in weighted average in our markets.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

This is up from 8%, the overall devaluation is 3% less than what we have expected to happen.

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

From a currency perspective, the currency assumptions in Q1 versus Q2 did not change. It was mainly organic from a growth perspective.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Yeah.

Jesse Sobelson
Jesse Sobelson
Analyst at BTIG

Thanks.

Vincent Fernando
Analyst at Zero One Investment Research

Hi, Vincent Fernando from Zero One Investment Research. Just want to talk a bit about your financial services business. I see that you've achieved about a 45% year-over-year growth in the first half. What's the latest in terms of your regulatory development outlook, particularly with Bangladesh? I think maybe if you could talk about the latest for Pakistan, which I know is much more mature, Bangladesh and Ukraine, which is very early, but will you start to have an outlook for Ukraine, maybe even when new licenses might be available, et cetera? Thank you.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Let me first of all give a little bit of a color of our business. Our business is really doing extremely well in Pakistan. We have 60 million bank accounts on a monthly basis, 27 million active users of our platform, JazzCash. We issue 225,000 nano loans every single day. We transact close to 16% of Pakistan's GDP. We have 1.6 million merchants on our network. We are a financial giant when it comes to the landscape. Naturally, with that comes a responsibility to work hand in hand with the authorities, including finance ministry and central bank, to make sure that we are basically serving the people in the right levels. I'm confident that the regulatory environment will also support us to expand our capacity to even grow our lending potential. Actually, this success, we believe, is quite repeatable in other markets, especially in Bangladesh and in Uzbekistan.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

That's why we are working again with the new government of Bangladesh in terms of creating the right platform for us to launch, which we will start with payment services and later on move into full scale a financial ecosystem in Bangladesh as well. I expect that to happen in Q3. With regard to our operations in Uzbekistan, in order to accelerate deployment of similar services in all the countries, we are looking forward to getting necessary digital banking licenses in every single market we have. We do have already payment solutions and digital wallets in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. In Ukraine, we are looking for the regulatory environment to allow us also to proceed in the same direction.

Vincent Fernando
Analyst at Zero One Investment Research

To kind of have a halfway solution before you can have your own full license that you work with, but maybe a bank to start building a financial services type of platform.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

It's early to give you a clear answer on that, but clearly we will be looking for every possible business model in terms of how we can serve our customers the way they deserve the service.

Vincent Fernando
Analyst at Zero One Investment Research

Great. Thank you.

Tim Ryan
Tim Ryan
Analyst at Oppenheimer

Thank you. Tim Ryan, Oppenheimer. You have a great relationship with SpaceX and Starlink. Could you just describe that relationship, how it's evolving? Also, how is the quality of the service that they're providing to you, and how do you think that changes, that connectivity changes these value-added services over time based on the fact that we're going to have connectivity almost everywhere?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

As I mentioned, connectivity is the foundation. It's our competitive advantage, and there is no excuse for it is not to be available. It has to be ubiquitous, it has to be affordable, accessible, because all our business model relies on that connectivity in the digital services part. Now, if you assess the situation in different countries, we operate in emerging markets, in frontier markets. In Ukraine, there's an ongoing war going on, and there are cases where our infrastructure, terrestrial infrastructure, may not be accessible due to landmines. It might be on the front line. There might be energy outages. In those cases, we have observed that it is essential to integrate our terrestrial network with the satellite platforms. That's exactly what we did.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

As of last quarter, more than six million people utilized the capabilities of connecting their smartphones without any other additional equipment directly to satellites and utilized messaging and light data services. This is remarkable because if you think about it, this allows us to be relevant to our customers literally every single minute in a day. Also it gives us the advantage that being a trusted partner when it comes to connectivity. We are expanding these capabilities to other markets, to Kazakhstan, to Bangladesh. We do not see Starlink as a substitution. We are complementary to each other. We are naturally in our markets, in sovereign countries, with sovereign regulations, protected in a way to keep our license and our technical responsibilities in each country to serve the populations in a safe and secure manner.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

I look forward to expanding our partnership with Starlink. Also clearly there is going to be many other alternatives. We will do our best to make sure that our customers are always connected so that they can always do financial services on our platforms. They can always access marketplaces, healthcare services, education services, entertainment services if they are our customers on connected site.

Tim Ryan
Tim Ryan
Analyst at Oppenheimer

I know you've had text for a little while, that sounded like it was working well. How's the data connectivity going? Related to that too, do you have an exclusivity for a period of time with them?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

First, in terms of quality, we have initiated the light data services in Ukraine, we are optimizing certain applications. Sasha is also here, our CEO in Ukraine. Those applications are optimized in a way that they can function in this light data environment. We do not have exclusivity. I do not believe in exclusivities. Customers have the exclusivity to select their telecom operators when it is necessary.

Tim Ryan
Tim Ryan
Analyst at Oppenheimer

Thank you.

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

I don't see any other questions in the room, operator shall we pass to the online attendees for their questions.

Operator

Thank you. For those of you in the Zoom webinar, if you'd like to ask a question, please click on the Raise Hand button on the bottom of your screen. When it is your turn to ask a question, you will receive a prompt to be promoted as a panelist. Please accept, wait a moment, once you have been introduced, you may unmute yourself, turn your video on, and ask your question. Written questions can be submitted on the webcast by using the Ask a Question tab at the top right of your screen. Our first question comes from Nick Paton with Edison Group. Please turn on your video, unmute yourself, and ask your question.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Nicholas, you might be on mute.

Operator

Nicholas, please turn on your video.

Nick Paton
Analyst at Edison Group

My apologies. Can you hear me now?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Yes, we can.

Nick Paton
Analyst at Edison Group

Excellent. Thank you. Couple of questions. The first one on the guidance. I'm struck by how much the guidance has changed since the full-year 2025 numbers. At the low end of the guidance full-year 2025, we're at 9%. We're now at 18% for the top end of the guidance for second quarter. On EBITDA, we've gone from five at the low end to now 12 at the top end. Can you just run us through, briefly, the key drivers of that change? I guess the question for investors is, what makes you so sure that you can achieve those numbers now when you were unsure you could achieve those numbers at the top end of the scale at the full-year 2025 numbers? The second question is regarding the new businesses.

Nick Paton
Analyst at Edison Group

The numbers are, I'm gonna hate myself for saying this, they really are an impressive set of numbers, the digital businesses have been growing like crazy. When you look at the digital businesses, let's say three to five years in time, are you still able to leverage the capital returns that come from the established fixed asset base? Do you have to invest more in the fixed asset base? How do those returns on capital change between the core telecom business and the digital business, let's say, in three to five years' time? I'm reminded of your answer, Kaan. I think it was on the first quarter, maybe it was the full-year numbers, when you went through the difference between the digital and the core telecom returns on capital. I thought that was a very interesting and instructive answer.

Nick Paton
Analyst at Edison Group

I'd be interested to hear an update on that and to hear how you think those capital returns change through time. Thank you.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Nicholas, thank you very much. Actually, you are absolutely right. I wish we could have been more precise two quarters ago. Flywheel is working, flywheel is working better than we expected. As you have rightly pointed in your second part of your question, it is growing. It is growing 50%-60% year-on-year, and it is beyond what we have expected. It's not only about the top-line growth. The EBITDA growth of digital services is also above our expectations, significantly above. Actually, EBITDA grew 66%. The margin on the digital services is expanding as well. Those two things combined gives us the confidence to raise our guidance. I think what we see, it's a sustainable business model. We are systematically seeing that more customers are embracing our solutions, and we still have room to sustain this growth.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

When it comes to cash generative capacity. Our original business idea a year ago when I talked with you, that the digital services would deliver a margin of 20%-25%. We are at 36%. Digital services has a CapEx revenue ratio of 7%. 36 minus 7 makes 29. On the foundation side, we do have a margin of 45%, 20% goes to CapEx, you end up with 25. Actually, that's why I'm saying the digital services cash generation capacity has exceeded our expectations as a business model a year ago, which I am very happy to see. Having said that, please don't forget, foundation is our competitive edge. We will not stop investing in that. We will keep investing in where it is necessary. Just like in Pakistan, we have recently bought some spectrum.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

We are now lighting up the spectrum for 4G, extended 4G, and 5G. We will do exactly the same in our other markets. The balance of our growth coming from digital will slowly actually put us in a better position in terms of cash generation capacity. I'm happy that it is happening faster than we expected. Apologize that the expectation was not spot on two quarters ago. I think we are on the right side of that equation.

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

Kaan, if I may just add on to that. At the end of first quarter, I think we pointed out that we wanted to see how the macro impact of what was happening in the Middle East and oil prices weighed in on operations. We'd made the very clear point of, therefore, our holding on EBITDA, just to get better clarity on how things evolved. Clearly sitting here today, it's pleasing to see that this turned out better than we thought, not just on the margin side, also on the revenue side. I think that's also the additional fact that I wanted to point out that leads to where we are today relative to year-end.

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

Last, on your CapEx question, whether we will spend more in the future. Yes, but the CapEx ratio will not go over 7% with the growth in revenue accelerating. Definitely, we'll stay with the same CapEx ratios on our digital businesses.

Nick Paton
Analyst at Edison Group

Sorry, just to follow-up with you. Is this a 7% CapEx to sales for the digital businesses in isolation?

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

Yes. That's today what we spend.

Nick Paton
Analyst at Edison Group

Yeah. You're saying that it won't go above that in the future either?

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

Yes, because of the growth in the revenue projections.

Nick Paton
Analyst at Edison Group

Oh, okay.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

I actually would expect it to decline in a way. Yeah.

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

Business is evolving. I think the message is we're very pleased with the momentum of the business. Business is evolving. Margins are turning out better than where we expected. The flywheel, as Kaan pointed out, is working and working incredibly well, and we take it as we go along. As things stand, as Burak pointed out, we expect this business to continue to generate pretty material cash. As the business grows, hopefully, we continue and see it progressing in the same direction.

Nick Paton
Analyst at Edison Group

Makes sense. Thank you, guys.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you, Nicholas.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Adrian Cundy with Emerging & Frontier Capital. You can now unmute your audio, turn on your video and ask your question.

Adrian Cundy
Analyst at Emerging & Frontier Capital

Good morning, Kaan, Burak, Anand. It's good to see you, and congratulations on delivering again this quarter. I have two questions. One about just sort of your use of headquarter liquidity going forward, given that you've really turned the corner on the debt restructuring and that you've moved into a positive free cash flow to equity profile. You've nearly $1 billion of cash at the headquarters and no major repayments until out beyond what you're upstreaming 2031, 2033. Can we sort of expect further reinvestment of that cash into any of the key countries, particularly if they need to capitalize digital bank? Do you think you can continue to grow those opcos with their domestic cash flows? M&A broadly, is that now new markets that you're keeping an eye on, given that you have dry powder at the headquarters? That's my first question.

Adrian Cundy
Analyst at Emerging & Frontier Capital

My second question comes down to the going back to the CapEx intensity, and thank you for the 7% number just now. 5G launching in Pakistan, Uzbekistan talking about significant investment in 5G post the sale of Mobiuz, 40% of subs by 2030 something, I saw a headline. Kazakhstan, obviously Bangladesh will come. Then there's Starlink. What do the relative margins look like between a Starlink data ARPU versus a terrestrial ARPU on 5G? Which is more profitable? What do you sort of see the balance of, and where will you be focusing your 5G investment? Are you confident that you can continue extended 4G, early stage 5G in high density areas at the current CapEx sales ratios?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Adrian, let me first start with the part about M&A. We are extremely disciplined when it comes to decisions about growing through inorganic means. Naturally, there are very accretive in-market consolidation opportunities that we will always be looking after. I truly believe that our stock price at today, trading at 3.5x EBITDA, is not at the level that we would be looking into acquisitions at a broad level. I will keep that discipline very strong over the next couple of years. That's number one. Of course, in market consolidation, naturally accretive synergies, these are things that we will be in the market continuously. You ask about the profitability of Starlink versus our other networks, terrestrial networks.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

If you look to the cost of producing mobile data via terrestrial networks in terms of deployment of towers, equipment, et cetera, versus having access to satellite connectivity. Let me give you an example in Kazakhstan. The size of Kazakhstan is probably bigger than the entire U.S., and 20 million people live there. If I would try to deliver license requirements just in railways and roads based on terrestrial networks, it would cost me a fortune.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

I do not see actually cost differentials or additional cost when it comes to access to satellite platforms. I consider it actually quite reasonable when it comes to comparing the cost of satellite connectivity versus terrestrial connectivity. Having said that, this is not about substituting terrestrial networks, fiber networks with satellites. It's complementing it when it is needed. I think, with that regard, the utility value to the customer definitely is much higher than the cost of the technology brings.

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

Just to add to that, as Kaan said during the presentation, we will definitely use cash for shareholder return. On top of that, he just mentioned the M&A opportunities that we have in order to grow our business for in-market consolidation and maybe on the fintech side in priority. Last but not least, we will be addressing some higher cost debt that is sitting on the balance sheet today to make sure that we kind of balance the cost to debt ratio there in terms of interest expenses.

Adrian Cundy
Analyst at Emerging & Frontier Capital

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you, Adrian.

Operator

Our next question will come from Matthew Harrigan with Benchmark StoneX. Please unmute and ask your question.

Matthew Harrigan
Analyst at Benchmark StoneX

Great. Thank you. Firstly, when you look at the digital side, I mean, clearly you're a market leader in some areas where there's very substantial TAM, witnessed in other markets, and you can see a really nice growth curve all the way around. You're also involved on the LLM side as a critical player, working with Google Gemma and COSCO, clearly. How do you see the utility of LLM models developing for your frontier markets, and are they eventually monetizable in concert with your partners? Secondly, clearly in some other markets, people would be talking about targets of 5 times EV to sales, rather than 5 times EV to EBITDA. But when you think about valuation without giving out a number, I mean, clearly, Pakistan is one of the cheaper markets in the world.

Matthew Harrigan
Analyst at Benchmark StoneX

I mean, even relative to the Morgan Stanley MSCI frontier markets basket. How do you feel about valuation in terms of, I mean, should people be doing 10-year models rather than five-year models? I mean, growth rates relative to GDP. I mean, do you think you get a fundamental re-rating of Pakistan or clearly Ukraine? I mean, if that starts trading like Poland, you've got an immediate pop in Kyivstar. Just kind of playing In a capital markets professor, just any thoughts you had on valuation without trying to say, well, I know you're not going to say what you think your stock is worth. Thank you. Congratulations on the results and guidance.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you, Matthew. Let me start with the second question you asked, because clearly we will be this year doing more than half a billion dollar of sales, and maybe I'm on the low side giving this number. In Pakistan alone on financial services, and if you look to the benchmarks, financial services businesses of this nature is just about to be IPOd for 7.5 times the revenues, not EBITDA. Clearly this excites me a lot because it shows the value that we are creating in the marketplace. Now Pakistan is a $2 billion run rate business for us. Among that, about half a billion coming from financial services shows the potential of the country. 250 million people and 20 million outside of Pakistan. I think it's a unique market.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

We are blessed to be given the chance to serve Pakistanis around the world, we will continue investing. I think, the question you asked whether the valuations will reflect that, markets always get it right, and I'm confident in that. Time will show it. Looking to the first question you asked, AI. I was reading today the CEO of Ooredoo making a very relevant comment. He says, "I am seeing AI everywhere except for P&L." In reality, there is, I believe, a fundamental reality we have to focus on. Value proposition, right? A company exists because it proposes a value to the customer. Customers matter still. The old type telecom companies, what is their value proposition? Number of minutes, number of SMSs, number of gigabytes. A digital operator, the transformation we have been going through for three, four years now, sells meaningful digital services.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

It's not enough. AI will change this as well. We will be providing customers an intelligence platform. I don't like to talk about this super intelligence, quantum, this and that. It's simple. We provide customers a chance to become superheroes, a doctor, a better doctor, a teacher, a better teacher, a farmer, a more productive farmer, a small business owner to be more efficient. A value proposition like a better version of yourself for $2 a month, for $0.50 a transaction, I think is unbeatable. That's where we are heading. That's our AI strategy. It will be all about sovereign LLMs. It will be all about embedding AI into our super apps, which has more than 65 million users today. We do not have a problem of customer acquisition cost.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

We have a speed to market, bringing these LLMs at the fingertips of 600 million people. I see a huge revenue potential. We are working with every single country in our portfolio developing these LLMs. I believe developing sovereign LLMs is by itself a business, but developing data inference capacity for the customers is another business. Those are the things that we are working on today.

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

If I could add, Kaan, I think, Matt, if you're aware, Kaan mentioned $182 million of stock bought back to date. I think that's a very clear indication of management's perception of the stock being significantly undervalued. Today, we've again announced we are going to cancel minimum $100 million of stock per year. This is a velocity with free cash flow as we generate that should be the clearest vindication reflection of what we think about the stock price. Still, you're the experts. You're doing your own numbers. As Kaan mentioned, there are comparables out there. From our perspective, to generate that cash and use it to basically reflect in what is a very undervalued stock, and therefore buying it back, is probably the clearest signal that we can provide in the market, and that we'll continue to do.

Matthew Harrigan
Analyst at Benchmark StoneX

Thanks, Kaan. Thanks, Anand. Very much look forward to your Capital Markets Day should be interesting.

Operator

Thank you.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Looking forward to seeing you there, Matthew.

Operator

Apologies. Thank you. Our next question comes from Max Findlay with Rothschild & Co. Please unmute and ask your question.

Max Findlay
Max Findlay
Analyst at Rothschild & Co

Hi, all. Thank you for speaking to us today. My questions are more focused on performance within your different markets. Bangladesh feels like it's split between a continuingly tough telco market, but you're managing to offset this with some impressive digital performance and cost performance as well. First on the telco performance, Telenor was very cautious about recovering the market, but both from incoming phones and your operational KPIs looks to be heading in the right direction, and your EBITDA margin stabilized quarter-over-quarter and I think expanded year-over-year if you exclude a one-off from last year. It'd be interesting to get your thoughts on how recovery proceeds from there. Secondly, relating to Bangladesh, digital grew there about $12 million in absolute terms.

Max Findlay
Max Findlay
Analyst at Rothschild & Co

Can you provide some color on what contribution came from holding the rights to the World Cup and what we should expect from this in Q3? Kind of broader expectations about the fintech business, which you hope to get live in the second half of the year. A final question on Kazakhstan. It was obviously a very difficult quarter there with performance deteriorating sequentially from Q1. The strategy change there, as I understand, was to target higher value customers and to do this by bundling services. Local currency ARPU fell at 1.5% year-over-year, and margins have dropped by 7% year-over-year in Q1 and nearly 9% this quarter. I guess the question is the shift in customer strategy working? What can we expect in terms of margin recovery in the near term? Thank you very much.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you, Max. Let me start with Bangladesh. Clearly, I'm happy to see the stabilization of the market, and we have been consistently growing in the last three quarters year-over-year. This quarter is an interesting one because I think it shows the potential of the country. There has been significant energy outages in Bangladesh in April and May, to the level that the entire country has reduced its data consumption by 15%. Now, in an emerging market, you would expect data consumption to go up 40% year-over-year. This happened because of energy outages and practically because of the Hormuz Strait crisis, oil being not available in certain places. Despite this, we managed to grow our business. What really excites me in Bangladesh, we broke all records.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

I was talking with Google executives recently, they said, "We have never seen such a thing like this in World Cup in terms of broadcasting the games to Bangladeshi population in and outside of Bangladesh." I was actually yesterday at a restaurant, and I met a Bangladeshi guy, and the moment I said, "Do you know Bengali and Toffee?" He said, "Yes, I watched all the games from Toffee at $5 rather than $20." It is good to see that we are even getting in New York some attention. In terms of the monetization potential of digital services, the growth you see there is thanks to the World Cup. I congratulate United States. I think they run the best World Cup that I have seen, but it also had a major impact in Bangladesh, and we are very happy to see that.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

I'm more positive than other players in the market in terms of the progress and development of Bangladesh. I think when the energy stabilization also normalizes, we will see higher growth rates from the country. Now, coming to Kazakhstan, there are a couple of things that we need to keep in mind. First of all, VAT rates have increased by 6%. This is a significant change, and we were not able to adjust this to the pricing. Normally, we are better in doing this, but in this particular case, 6% disappeared from top line, and you can imagine the impact of that to the EBITDA. The second important issue is we have a model of bundling smartphones into family packages. It's a great idea, but it also has a temporary fluctuation in the marginality because of the way it is accounted for.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Those two important dynamics had an impact. I'm not concerned. Kazakhstan is the most advanced digitally aligned market that we have in our portfolio, and we are actually doing quite well despite the fact that we are providing 4G advanced services in Kazakhstan. We have a unique advantage in terms of customer satisfaction and net promoter scores. Overall, I see the Kazakhstan as a temporary issue in terms of margin erosion, but I'm sure that Kazakh market will prove itself to be an extremely dynamic and successful market as the time passes this year.

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

Just to add on top the Bangladesh, on top of the World Cup, there was a pricing adjustment we did year-over-year for our services. That also impacted the revenue growth.

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

I think just to complete that, digital is 13%. The World Cup helped that 13%, it's not as if we want to call that a one-off. I mean, there's flywheels in motion. There's a lot of other things. We're hoping for that momentum to kind of continue to sustain itself.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

There are countries which loves cricket like Pakistan. There are countries which likes football like Bangladesh. Every Bangladeshi is either a Brazilian fan or a Argentina fan. You can go to during the World Cup time, the country is full of Argentina and Brazil flags. It was good that Argentina made to the last final game for us.

Max Findlay
Max Findlay
Analyst at Rothschild & Co

Thanks, guys. It's shameless. No more tariff anomaly supporters in Bangladesh. We live in hope. Just coming back on the EBITDA margin point on Kazakhstan. I mean, is this margin depressed at the moment because you're bundling it in with low margin equipment revenues? You don't expect further deterioration, but the kind of margins stay around the kind of 40%-45% kind of range where they've been Q1, Q2. Is that the right way to interpret that?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Max, first of all, let me correct one thing. We do not subsidize equipment, it's not a matter of margin dilution because of subsidies of equipment. It is a matter of revenue recognition, which recognizes some of that margin in the previous quarters rather than this quarter. It's a cyclical movement of the volumes of business having the impact because the way the service and equipment integration into packages results in different type of an accounting procedure.

Max Findlay
Max Findlay
Analyst at Rothschild & Co

Right. Thank you.

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

In simple terms, we recognize equipment revenue up front, and the higher margin service revenue gets recognized over the term. Therefore, as the business grows, we recognize more lower margin revenue up front, and that's the success. That's actually success of business growing, that we recognize more lower margin revenue up front, and then the higher margin service revenue will come in turn.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Combined with the 6% VAT impact, you can understand where we are.

Max Findlay
Max Findlay
Analyst at Rothschild & Co

Brilliant. Very clear. Thank you. Thank you both.

Operator

Our next question comes from Ahmed Mostafa with Inam. Please unmute, turn on your video and ask your question.

Ahmed Mostafa
Analyst at Inam

Hello, everyone. Thanks for the presentation. Two questions from my side. First, digital ARPU margin reached 36% this quarter. What are the main levers and medium-term milestones for further margin expansion? Second, which markets still have the most headroom to increase multi-play penetration?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you. Thank you for the question. Now, let me answer it this way. There are markets already where number of digital service customers have exceeded number of our telecom customers. When I look to advanced markets, especially Pakistan being the highest, I think we are getting close to 38% of our revenues coming from financial and digital services. This is just a constant, because as we bring the right services to each market on financial services side, entertainment side, healthcare, education, and AI services, I think we are going to see a constant increase. Our multi-play customer base was raised this quarter about 4.5%, which is actually the healthy trend that we would like to continue. The biggest upside that I see in this space is still Bangladesh, and this is related to smartphone penetration in the country.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

There's an interesting metric that I want to share with you. If you look to GSMA reports, for the five countries that we operate in, this is 530 million people lives. Number of people connected to internet is 288 million. Number of digital service customers we have is 228 million people. Basically, six out of 10 people, whoever gets connected to internet is our customers already, one way or the other. Now, we need to push for equal inclusion for women on smartphone ownership. That's our number one priority. That will mean that we have to work hand-in-hand with the governments and equipment producers to increase the smartphone penetration, and especially on female population.

Ahmed Mostafa
Analyst at Inam

Thank you.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jake Ng with New Street Research. Please unmute your audio, turn on your video and ask your question.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Jake, you are on mute.

Jake Ng
Jake Ng
Analyst at New Street Research

Yes. Hi, sorry. Hi, this is Jake. I understand that VEON currently has a global framework agreement with Starlink, and we know Starlink is present in Ukraine. You guys are working with them in Kazakhstan and Bangladesh already. Is there a possibility of us seeing this in Pakistan and Uzbekistan as well? Just this.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thanks, Jake. I assume Chris is on vacation already, please pass my regards to him and tell him both you and him invited to the Capital Markets Day. The answer is yes, as long as the government allows us to. There are quite a number of regulations to get to this point, and it takes a while to show the governments that this is an essential need for the populations. I think there should be no country in the world which would not be integrating their terrestrial networks with satellite platforms. We should not consider this as a threat. This is a responsibility for the populations. Actually, I wish the regulatory environments would be forcing every single operator to do this. We are doing ourselves, and we are working with all the countries' regulators to also demonstrate the value of doing this.

Burak Ozer
Burak Ozer
Group CFO at VEON

On top, our contractual terms do give us benefits as we add on more countries with Starlink.

Jake Ng
Jake Ng
Analyst at New Street Research

Is it possible to elaborate on any of these benefits you mentioned?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

I suggest we keep the commercial details to ourselves. Thanks a lot for the question, but I don't think we can share that.

Jake Ng
Jake Ng
Analyst at New Street Research

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Ali Zaidi with Inam. Please unmute, turn on your video and ask your question.

Ali Zaidi
Analyst at Inam

Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I just have one question. You have called out that there is a high energy cost in Pakistan, and there are also energy-related disruptions in Bangladesh as well. In Ukraine, you responded to that kind of problem by buying the generation there again. Is that something you would consider in Pakistan and Bangladesh as well?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Good question. Of course, in Ukraine, we have a stronger appetite to deploy capital in terms of this type of investments. In other markets, we are looking for alternative methods. Actually, deploying solar farms only works if there is a strong grid distributing the energy in the country. Both in Bangladesh and Pakistan, the grid infrastructure is not at the level that we can do the same playbook. Having said that, more and more, there are site-based technologies that could allow us to do solar and wind generation for the specific sites. Actually, last year, we have deployed one of those sites in Kazakhstan at a very remote location, which still works in a perfect manner. We will be looking for those. There are already projects in place, especially in Pakistan, to solarize some of our sites, giving very encouraging results.

Ali Zaidi
Analyst at Inam

Thank you so much.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you.

Operator

Thanks. Last question comes from Theodore O'Neill with Litchfield Hills. Please unmute and ask your question.

Theodore O'Neill
Theodore O'Neill
Analyst at Litchfield Hills

Thank you very much. Congratulations on the quarter. I'm looking over the results for the quarter, and I'm struck by the fact that country by country, you've got, with the exception of Bangladesh, for reasons you already mentioned, you've got double-digit growth in revenue in dollars, but the mobile customer numbers are all essentially unchanged. At some point, do you need to see those mobile customer numbers go up? Or is it partly what you just talked about, too, with the female population that you're trying to address?

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Yes. First of all, we are focused on the flywheel that I described. How much of that customers are multi-play customers versus just an end-to-end SIM card or practically customers who are only using our voice services. We are very satisfied with that evolution overall. In our markets, there is still a challenge, especially when it comes to Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are big populations in terms of smartphone availability. Our ability to make smartphones affordable and accessible and also penetrating into markets which there is very low smartphone ownership, especially the women, I think is a critical success factor. Of course, we have programs to address those, but you will only see that growth picking up in the way that we want with regard to multi-play customer base, if we can grow the penetration of smartphones in the markets.

Theodore O'Neill
Theodore O'Neill
Analyst at Litchfield Hills

Thank you. See you November 16th.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you.

Operator

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

Anand Ramachandran
Anand Ramachandran
Chief Corporate Development Officer at VEON

Thank you so much. I'd probably take a last call for any follow-up questions in the room. I don't see any. With that, guys, thank you very much for your time and attention. As Kaan said, we will have the Capital Markets Day in November, and obviously the third quarter results before that. Thank you very much for your attention and support to VEON. We'll keep talking, see you as a part of this group again next quarter. Thank you so much.

Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
Group CEO at VEON

Thank you. Thanks a lot

Executives
    • Anand Ramachandran
      Anand Ramachandran
      Chief Corporate Development Officer
    • Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
      Kaan TerzioÄŸlu
      Group CEO
    • Burak Ozer
      Burak Ozer
      Group CFO
Analysts
    • Jesse Sobelson
      Analyst at BTIG
    • Vincent Fernando
      Analyst at Zero One Investment Research
    • Tim Ryan
      Analyst at Oppenheimer
    • Nick Paton
      Analyst at Edison Group
    • Adrian Cundy
      Analyst at Emerging & Frontier Capital
    • Matthew Harrigan
      Analyst at Benchmark StoneX
    • Max Findlay
      Analyst at Rothschild & Co
    • Ahmed Mostafa
      Analyst at Inam
    • Jake Ng
      Analyst at New Street Research
    • Ali Zaidi
      Analyst at Inam
    • Theodore O'Neill
      Analyst at Litchfield Hills
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