You're reading: British phone carrier Lycamobile enters Ukraine, partners with Ukrtelecom

British operator Lycamobile is seeking to shake up Ukraine’s mobile telecoms market, saying at its launch on July 24 that it aims to gain 1 million subscribers within its first year. Relying on its slogan of “affordable calls abroad,” it will compete against the country’s “big three” operators who currently dominate: Kyivstar, Vodafone and Lifecell.

Lycamobile is a virtual network operator — it doesn’t have its own infrastructure and uses the equipment of local carriers to provide its services. It works in 21 countries (in most of the European countries, in Australia, and the United States) and is now entering Ukraine. 

The carrier has up to 15 million subscribers, and its annual global turnover is 1.6 billion euros.

“We’re extending our footprint further,” Lycamobile CEO Chris Tooley told the Kyiv Post after a press conference held on July 24 in Kyiv. Ukraine is to be the operator’s 22nd country.

To start operating on the Ukrainian territory, Lycamobile has partnered with 3Mob, a carrier that belongs to Ukraine’s telecom monopolist Ukrtelecom JSC. Ukrtelecom will have “small” share in Lycamobile Ukraine for allowing to use its network.

Tooley declined to specify exactly what share Ukrtelecom has in the venture, telling the Kyiv Post that “journalists should not focus on it.”

The British executive also thinks the Ukrainian telecom market is “dynamic,” and said that he hopes the company will quickly get a return on its “seven-digit” investment in Ukraine. 

“Our target audience here is people who tend to have more than one SIM card,” Tooley told the Kyiv Post. “And our SIM card will be for cheap calls abroad.” According to him, the operator’s services may be most convenient for connecting diasporas around the world.

Ukrtelecom CEO Yuriy Kurmaz in turn says that this partnership is to trigger investments of up to $2 million from his company.

“We are glad to give Lycamobile access to our network. At the same time, this partnership will allow us additionally invest significant money into 3Mob internet network.”

Tariff plan and data

Lycamobile provides only pre-paid services and currently offers only one tariff plan in Ukraine — $5 per month for 16 gigabytes of data and 300 minutes, 300 SMS messages from Ukraine to Lycamobile subscribers in all the countries in which it has a presence.

Users that call using their SIM card somewhere outside of Ukraine will pay the company’s roaming prices. 

The company will give the option of up to five separate tariff plans later, but has yet to specify potential prices. 

SIM cards will begin to be distributed through Ukrtelecom shops over the next few weeks. 

3Mob’s 3G covers less territory than Ukrainian group of three biggest operators: Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine, lifecell. So, in places where 3Mob does not have its 3G network, Lycamobile will work through Vodafone Ukraine.

Currently, there are about 60 million active SIM cards in Ukraine, which is around two times more than the Ukrainian population.

Apart from telecoms, Lycamobile parent works in banking (LycaMoney), tourism (LycaFly) and lottery services (LycaLotto).

The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by Ciklum. The content is independent of the donors.