Ukraine operator Kyivstar’s CEO Oleksandr Komarov (pictured) citied opportunities around big data, B2B cloud services and fixed market consolidation, as he provided an optimistic outlook for the company’s plans to drive digital technology in the country.

At a media roundtable in London, Komarov detailed efforts to maintain network coverage in the country during a war with Russia and specified growth areas to be tapped following $600 million of fresh investment from parent company Veon.

The executive pointed to broad societal benefits expected to be derived from increased 4G coverage and continued adoption of digital technology moving forward.

He noted the company had already been an investor into e-health applications, a drive he expects to continue and be combined with developments in cloud.

It also plans a focus on big data, and is assessing opportunities in the education and agriculture segments, alongside digitising internal processes.

“We consider cloud as a very complementary, big service for our B2B clients,” he said. “We are extensively investing in big data, because big data was the fastest growing stream before the war and I’m quite confident [this continuing] is just a matter of time.”

Assessing Kyivstar’s consumer business, he stated “entertainment is developing quite well so we are considering where we can move our own application”. Its customer app is currently focused on self-service facilities, though he hopes this can be broadened.

M&A
Outside of its mobile business, Komarov said the company was “ready to participate” in fixed consolidation.

“We want to strengthen ourselves in fixed”, he added. “In mobile there are three players so [it is a] relatively concentrated market, but in the fixed business there are 3,000 operators in Ukraine”.

He indicated many of these were “very local, small networks with [a] few thousand customers”.

The comments come as the company continues to make repairs to infrastructure damaged during the conflict and offer support facilities for customers displaced as a result.

As of last week, 93 per cent of its network was active due to its efforts with almost 150,000 repairs to infrastructure made during the conflict.