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Concorde Capital said in a note. “Astarta’s breach of some financial covenants came as a negative surprise to us, but we do not expect any consequences for the company from that. Meanwhile, we expect some negative reaction of the market to Astarta’s report, which might create a good entry point to purchase its stock. That said, we continue to believe that Astarta’s equity price has a good potential to rise in the mid-term,” Paraschiy added.
9.2.7 TMT corporate news
Leading Ukrainian mobile phone company Kyivstar reported a 14.1% rise in total revenue year-over-year for July-September 2018, to UAH4.925bn ($176mn), while revenue from mobile communications services increased 14.3%, to UAH4.6bn, reports Interfax Ukraine. Revenue growth from mobile data transfer was the fastest growing segment, up 82.1% y/y. Mobile communications services now account for almost 50% of the company’s total revenues, according to the operator’s press release. The number of subscribers was also up by a quarter (23.5%) y/y over the same period from 14.5mn customers last year. At the same time, the company said that the average consumption of mobile Internet in the third quarter increased by 181% and reached 2.347 GB per subscriber, which is higher than in some EU countries. In total, 26.6mn customers used the services of Kyivstar in the third quarter of 2018, which is 0.5% more than in the third quarter of 2017. As a result, average revenue per user (ARPU) of mobile communications also increased, to UAH57, or by 14.3% compared to the same period last year. Revenues from fixed-line services in the third quarter of 2018 increased 9.9%, to UAH302mn. The number of households that activated the Home Internet service increased by 9.8% and reached 900,000. ARPU grew by 3%, to UAH71, which was due to increased demand for services within the universal service - the ability to use mobile services, fixed-line Internet and digital TV on a single account.
Ukraine’s largest e-commerce companies, Rozetka and EVO Group, are merging the week of November 26, after winning approval from Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee on Tuesday. Rozetka bought a 56% stake in EVO from Naspers, the South Africa-based multinational internet and media group. Rozetka and Evo plan to create a new enterprise, placing all their online stores they own under one umbrella, including Bigl, Crafta, Deal, Kabanchik, Prom, Shafa and Vchasno.
Justin, a new private delivery company, is joining Ukraine’s fast growing delivery business , opening 330 branches by the end of this year. To cultivate online shoppers, Justin plans to offer order tables at its branches, which are generally located near supermarkets and in shopping centres. Through September, e-commerce is up in Ukraine by one third year over year, to $3.1bn in sales.
Snap Inc, owner of photo and messenging app Snapchat, has opened an office and a 50-person R&D unit in Kyiv’s UNIT.City, Maksym Yakover, CEO of the IT hub, writes on Facebook. With 186mn active daily users, Snap has a stock valuation of $7.8bn. In 2015, Snap made its first Ukraine investment, paying $150mn for Odesa startup Looksery. About 200 IT specialist now work at Looksery, developing the company’s main app, Lenses.
Implementation of 4G mobile service pushed Vodaphone Ukraine’s net
72 UKRAINE Country Report December 2018 www.intellinews.com