By Leo Marchandon
March 13 – Digital services operator Veon on Friday reported core profit that was up around 19% for its full year, driven by higher demand for digital services as it looks to expand its Starlink partnership to Bangladesh next.
Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization (EBITDA) came in at $2 billion. Veon said its digital services revenues grew 62.5% in a year, now making up 17.3% of the group’s income.
Chief Executive Kaan Terzioglu told Reuters that Ukraine had taught the company that terrestrial networks have inherent limits, from landmines preventing engineer access, to energy outages disabling base stations, and that satellite integration was the answer.
Bangladesh is next in line for the technology, he revealed, with Uzbekistan and Pakistan to follow.
Terzioglu said Veon was now “the largest partner when it comes to the number of customers utilizing direct-to-cell technology of Starlink,” with almost 5 million users in Ukraine over four months and 7 million messages sent over the network.
In Pakistan, Veon’s Jazz unit secured 190 MHz in this week’s spectrum auction, the largest single allocation, paving the way for 5G deployment.
Terzioglu praised Pakistan’s decision to triple available spectrum while reducing costs, calling it “a best practice the world needs to hear.”
He said he was monitoring a brewing conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan but added that experience from Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic had shown “when things get difficult, our services become more essential.”
Total digital monthly active users reached 135.5 million, up 11.4% year-on-year.
On expansion, Terzioglu said he was “continuously monitoring” markets above 100 million people that lack adequate banking infrastructure, describing them as natural targets given Veon’s experience in delivering digital services through its telecom networks.
For 2026, Veon guided for revenue growth of 9%-12% and EBITDA growth of 7%-10%.
(Reporting by Leo Marchandon in Gdansk; Editing by Matt Scuffham)
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