Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 30
By Fikret Dolukhanov – Trend:
Demonopolization of the industry and significant investments in expanding the external internet channel will play a key role in increasing the penetration of mobile communications in Uzbekistan, Madina Ruzmatova, PR adviser to the mobile operator Beeline Uzbekistan, told Trend.
She noted, referring to the latest data of the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications Development of Uzbekistan, that the number of mobile subscribers reached 22.8 million people in 2018, with a total population of 33.08 million. The mobile penetration rate, therefore, was 68.9 percent.
According to the representative of Beeline, the growth dynamics of the number of base stations are also very positive. By the beginning of 2018, the total number of base stations of mobile communication in Uzbekistan was 22,178, compared to 18,194 a year before.
“The total coverage of Beeline’s mobile network in Uzbekistan’s population is 93 percent. All major cities and towns as well as many remote settlements are provided with the cellular network. In 2018, we are implementing a large-scale campaign to increase penetration rates in the regions. Now there is a significant growth trend, especially in 3G and 4G high-speed data transfer technologies (by 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively),” Ruzmatova said.
She stressed that the country has large potential to increase the penetration of the mobile internet.
“The key role will be played by the demonopolization of the industry and significant investments in the expansion of the external internet channel. We see positive changes in this direction. In 2018, we managed to expand our external channel by almost four times compared to 10 Gbps at the beginning of the year, which significantly affected the quality of our services. This is directly linked with mobile internet penetration in the country, and we focused a large part of our investment portfolio in this direction,” the company representative concluded.
Unitel began operations in the market of Uzbekistan on Sept. 25, 1997. From Sept. 12, 2006, the company began to provide services under the brand name Beeline.
Unitel and Buzton (trademark Beeline) are part of the VEON Ltd. group of companies.
VEON (formerly VimpelCom Ltd) is a holding company controlling telecommunications assets in the CIS countries and in a number of countries in Asia and Africa.
The group includes the Russian mobile network operator Vympel-Communications, Ukrainian Kyivstar, cellular operators in a number of CIS countries (operating under the Beeline brand), Djezzy brand in Algeria, Banglalink in Bangladesh and Jazz in Pakistan. As of 2018, the holding serves 210 million customers worldwide. The largest shareholder of VEON is LetterOne, created by the owners of the Russian Alfa Group.
The company is registered in Bermuda, the headquarters is located in Amsterdam.
Beeline is currently the largest mobile operator in Uzbekistan. As of Jan. 1, 2018, the subscriber base of the mobile operator grew to almost 10 million users, which is over 40 percent of the total number of mobile subscribers in the country.
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