VEON Ltd. (VEON): Marketing Mix Analysis [Dec-2025 Updated]

You're looking for the real story behind VEON Ltd.'s late 2025 playbook, and honestly, it's a sharp pivot toward digital dominance and asset efficiency. Forget just selling SIM cards; the focus is on building that digital ecosystem, evidenced by direct digital revenues jumping 63.1% year-over-year in Q3. Plus, they are showing pricing muscle, with local revenue growth of 11% outpacing inflation, all while growing their high-value multiplay base to 43.5 million users who spend 3.39x more than basic voice customers. Let's cut through the noise and map out exactly how their Product, Place, Promotion, and Price strategies are set up to deliver on that 7% to 8% USD revenue growth outlook for the full year.

VEON Ltd. (VEON) - Marketing Mix: Product

VEON Ltd. (VEON) offers a product portfolio centered on converged connectivity and an expanding digital ecosystem designed to engage customers across all 1,440 minutes of the day, per its AI1440 vision.

The foundation of the product offering remains core telecommunications, providing mobile, fixed-line, and 4G data services across its operating markets. As of September 30, 2025, VEON provided services to over 150 million connectivity customers.

The digital product suite is a significant growth driver. Direct digital revenues for the third quarter of 2025 reached USD 198 million, marking a 63.1% year-over-year surge. These digital services now represent 17.8% of the Group's total revenues for Q3 2025.

The digital ecosystem encompasses several verticals:

• Financial services revenues specifically grew 32.6% to $107.5 million in Q3 2025.
• The digital portfolio includes entertainment offerings such as Tamasha.
• The consolidation of the ride-hailing service Uklon is now reflected in the Group's results.
• VEON served approximately 120 million monthly active digital users across its five dynamic markets.

VEON is actively enhancing its connectivity product with next-generation satellite technology. On November 24, 2025, Kyivstar, VEON's operator in Ukraine, launched Starlink's Direct to Cell satellite technology, making Ukraine the first country in Europe with the service. This initial deployment enables SMS capabilities for regular 4G smartphones in areas without terrestrial network availability, with plans to expand to voice and data in 2026. The immediate uptake was substantial: within 24 hours of launch, 300,000 Kyivstar customers signed up, sending 100,000 SMS messages via satellite.

The product strategy is heavily infused with Artificial Intelligence through the AI1440 strategy, which focuses on augmenting human capabilities. A concrete step in this direction is the development of a sovereign Ukrainian large language model (LLM). Kyivstar, in partnership with the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation, selected Google Gemma as the base model for this national LLM, leveraging Google's Vertex AI infrastructure. This initiative follows similar local language LLM developments in other markets, such as KazLLM in Kazakhstan.

Here is a snapshot of key product-related financial and operational metrics as of Q3 2025:

The product development emphasizes localized, augmented intelligence solutions across digital platforms, including fintech and entertainment, aiming to provide value for every one of the 1,440 minutes in a day.

VEON Ltd. (VEON) - Marketing Mix: Place

The Place strategy for VEON Ltd. centers on optimizing its physical and digital footprint to serve its concentrated customer base across its core operating territories. This involves a clear focus on high-potential geographies and streamlining the corporate structure to support market proximity.

Core Market Concentration and Streamlining

VEON Ltd. has strategically focused its distribution and operational efforts on five high-growth markets, which are home to a significant portion of the world's population. These markets are:

• Ukraine
• Pakistan
• Bangladesh
• Kazakhstan
• Uzbekistan

This focus was reinforced by a strategic portfolio optimization move completed in August 2025. VEON Ltd. finalized the sale of its 50.1% indirect stake in Sky Mobile LLC, operating as Beeline Kyrgyzstan, to Open Joint Stock Company "Eldik Bank" on August 12, 2025. This divestiture aligns with the strategy to concentrate on countries offering opportunities to grow multiple scalable digital businesses alongside connectivity offerings. Prior to the sale, Beeline Kyrgyzstan was noted as the lowest revenue contributor among the Group's operations. The original intended sale value for the stake to CG Cell Technologies was reported as US$32 million.

The corporate structure supporting these operations has also seen a geographic shift. VEON Ltd. completed the relocation of its Group headquarters from Amsterdam to the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) by the end of the second quarter of 2025. This move positions VEON Ltd. as the largest Nasdaq-listed company with its Group headquarters in Dubai.

Distribution Channels: Hybrid Model Execution

Distribution for VEON Ltd.'s converged connectivity and digital services relies on a hybrid model that blends traditional retail presence with advanced digital platforms. The digital component is anchored by country-specific 'super apps' that integrate various services, including payments, ride-hailing, entertainment, and delivery solutions.

The increasing relevance of the digital distribution channel is evident in the financial performance data from 2025:

The digital services, distributed through these super apps, are a key priority, especially financial services, due to the massive unbanked populations in markets like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan. For instance, in Pakistan, digital revenues are projected to account for 50% of the top-line by 2027. The growth in digital service revenue was 63% in the third quarter of 2025, contributing 18% of the group total revenue.

The company is actively embedding technology to enhance this distribution mechanism. For example, the consolidation of Uklon, a leading ride-hailing platform, significantly boosted direct digital revenue in Ukraine by 460.3% in local currency terms in Q2 2025.

VEON Ltd. (VEON) - Marketing Mix: Promotion

Promotion for VEON Ltd. centers on communicating the value of its converged connectivity and digital services across its operating markets. The messaging strongly emphasizes digital transformation and strategic corporate actions to build investor confidence.

Strategic focus on multiplay services, driving higher customer engagement.

VEON Ltd. promotes its 'Digital Operator model' as the core of its strategy. This involves pushing multiplay services, which combine connectivity with digital offerings like financial services, healthcare, entertainment, and enterprise applications. This focus is supported by significant digital revenue acceleration.

The promotion of digital growth is quantified by key financial metrics:

Furthermore, Kyivstar, a key asset, is promoting service diversification, evidenced by the USD 160 million acquisition of Uklon for ride-hailing in March 2025. Technological promotion includes the launch of Starlink Direct to Cell Satellite Connectivity in Ukraine by Kyivstar, with Beeline Kazakhstan targeting messaging via Direct to Cell in 2026.

The required metric for multiplay customer engagement is stated as follows:

• Multiplay customer base grew 23.3% YoY to 43.5 million as of Q3 2025.

In earlier periods, Kyivstar showed strong adoption, with multiplay customer growth of 50% year on year in the fourth quarter (prior year period).

Investor promotion: successful Nasdaq listing of Kyivstar Group, with VEON's 89.6% stake valued at USD 2.5 billion.

A major promotional effort targeted the investment community was the successful Nasdaq listing of Kyivstar Group, which occurred on August 29, 2025. This event was promoted to highlight Ukraine's investment case. The value proposition to investors was clear:

• VEON Ltd.'s 89.6% stake in Kyivstar Group is valued at USD 2.5 bn.
• This valuation was based on the November 7 closing price of USD 12.16 for the Kyivstar Group.
• The listing unlocked value, with the market valuation equal to 2.3 times VEON's book value for the asset at the time of listing.

Shareholder communication around corporate actions is also a key promotional activity. VEON enhanced engagement by partnering with Say Technologies to allow retail and institutional shareholders to submit and upvote questions for management ahead of the 3Q25 results conference call.

Shareholder value action: authorized a new buyback program of up to USD 100 million for ADSs and/or bonds.

To signal confidence and return capital, VEON's Board of Directors authorized a new shareholder value action. This program commenced on November 17, 2025.

• Authorized buyback program size: up to USD 100 million.
• The allocation can be wholly for American Depositary Shares (ADSs) or wholly for outstanding bonds, or split between the two.

This action follows the successful completion of the second phase of a previous buyback program, where 520,366 ADSs were acquired for a total consideration of US$23.2 million as of May 13, 2025. Furthermore, VEON secured unanimous support from 95.83% of 2027 bondholders regarding the issuer transfer process related to the Kyivstar listing in January 2025.

VEON Ltd. (VEON) - Marketing Mix: Price

Pricing discipline at VEON Ltd. is structured to maintain a lead over local market inflation, which is a key component of competitive attractiveness in the operating environments. This strategy helps ensure that revenue growth outpaces cost increases.

For the third quarter of 2025 (Q3 2025), local currency revenue growth registered 11% year-over-year (YoY). This performance successfully outpaced the average weighted inflation rate across VEON Ltd.'s markets, which stood at 9.2% for 3Q25. This demonstrates the Group's ability to sustain fair pricing.

The focus on digital services is directly reflected in customer monetization, where the pricing structure rewards deeper engagement. As noted in earlier reporting, multiplay users generate 3.39x higher Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) than voice-only users. More recent Q3 2025 data shows this ratio has further increased, with multiplay users delivering 3.8x higher ARPU compared to voice-only subscribers, while also exhibiting 50% lower churn rates.

VEON Ltd.'s forward-looking pricing expectations, which factor in market dynamics and digital upselling, are reflected in the full-year 2025 guidance:

The company maintains a disciplined approach to capital allocation, which indirectly supports pricing power by focusing investment where returns are highest. The projected capital expenditure intensity for the full year 2025, excluding Ukraine operations, is set to remain in the 17% to 19% range. This investment is targeted toward network modernization and digital infrastructure.

Key drivers supporting the pricing power and ARPU expansion include the shift to bundled offerings:

• Multiplay customers increased by 23.3% YoY to 43.5 million as of September 30, 2025.
• Multiplay revenues accounted for 55.4% of VEON Ltd.'s consumer revenues for 3Q25.
• Direct digital revenues grew 63.1% YoY in USD terms in Q3 2025, reaching USD 198 million.
• Financial services revenues grew 32.6% to $107.5 million in Q3 2025.