Company profiles
When it comes to mobile network companies, there are three main players in the Ukrainian telecommunications market, therefore providing an oligopoly in the respective sector. These include Kyivstar, Vodafone, and Lifecell, all of which are private. They account for 26.4 million, 19.8 million, and 6.9 million users respectively. In total, Ukraine has over 50 million mobile subscribers with a population of about 42 million people according to data for 2019. That is, many Ukrainians have several cards of mobile operators.
A common feature of all three companies is a significant share of foreign capital investments. This is connected with the fact that the nature of the market sector itself demands extensive investments that cannot be provided by Ukrainian market players.
The situation is more diversified in the sector of fixed Internet access providers. The major players in the market are private in nature and include Ukrtelecom (together with its branch 3Mob), Intertelecom, Vega Telecommunications Group and Volya Group. While the market may be quite difficult to enter due to existence of disproportionately big companies, the situation in the fixed Internet sector cannot be characterized as an oligopoly but rather as a healthily developing market.
Although fixed-line communications are losing their influence with the development of 4G mobile technologies.