BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 7
By Klavdiya Romakayeva - Trend:
Uzbekistan registered 19.2 million mobile users in 2020, Trend reports referring to the State Assets Management Agency (SAMA).
According to the information, the mobile communications market in Uzbekistan is almost entirely state-owned - out of six companies, the state owns a controlling stake in four, including Ucell, Mobiuz, Perfectum, and Uztelecom, while Beeline and Humans, which recently entered the market, remain private.
Until recently, the financial performance of state-owned companies was unknown, so in recent years the market was measured by one Beeline due to the fact that the parent company, VEON, Dutch-domiciled multinational telecommunication services company, is traded on the stock exchange and must be transparent. However, it is reported that from 2021, the situation began to change and state operators began to disclose their indicators directly or indirectly.
So, Mobiuz has taken a course towards transparency and published indicators in recent years. It turned out that in 2020 the company's revenue reached 951.1 billion soums ($90.6 million), and its net profit amounted to 31.7 billion soums ($3 million).
It is noted that the state owns 100 percent of the operator, but this may change in the future. The company is on the list of those that will be put up for public auction through targeted programs of pre-privatization preparation and increasing investment attractiveness. So far, the company started 2021 with the fact that it was the first in Uzbekistan to launch eSim (embedded-SIM).
Also, another major operator, Ucell, is about to change - the company will enter the new Digital Holding, which will be 51 percent owned by Digital Invest, whose main owners are USM Telecom and MegaFon.
It is reported that when Telia owned the operator, there was enough information about Ucell - the Swedish company disclosed financial and other indicators every quarter. But at the end of 2018 Telia sold the stake for $215 million and left the market. Recently the SAMA reported that the operator received a net profit of 199.8 billion soums ($19 million) in 2020. Other indicators were not disclosed.
As for Uzmobile, certain indicators of this mobile operator are unknown, but the entire Uztelecom in 2020 received a net profit of 69.7 billion. The number of the operator's users is estimated at 4.2 million.
VEON regularly reports on Beeline's performance. In 2020, the company's total operating revenue amounted to 1.9 trillion soums, operating expenses - 1.3 trillion soums ($124 million), adjusted EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) - 679 billion soums ($64.7 million).
In other terms, there were 19.2 million mobile users in Uzbekistan in 2020, according to Omdia, a technology, media, and telecommunications research center.
According to the center's analysts, Beeline has the most users - 6.8 million. Ucell is in second place with five million, Uzmobile is in third place with 4.2 million, Mobiuz with 2.8 million users on the fourth line, Perfectum closes the top five with 0.4 million users.
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