The most expensive Ukrainian application. Here are the main figures and facts about the deal between Kyivstar and Uklon

In this column, I will share the key figures, facts, and assumptions regarding the deal itself, as well as Uklon’s operations.

Record deal amount

This amount is probably the largest deal price for the acquisition of a domestic Ukrainian online service (operating within the country) of all time. In 2021, Kaspi bought the financial online service Portmone for approximately $15 million, and the deal for Kyivstar to purchase the medical platform Helsi was valued at approximately $10 million. Here are a few recent examples.

If converted into hryvnias, the price of the deal is 6.45 billion. A large sum, but for Kyivstar it is more than affordable. Let me remind you that the mobile operator’s net profit for 2024 amounted to 11.3 billion hryvnias. That is, Uklon actually cost half of the buyer’s annual profit.

Given that Kyivstar has not paid dividends abroad in three years of large-scale operations, the Uklon acquisition deal can be humorously described in two words: «Give me two!» The country’s largest telecom company has enough financial resources.

Place in the market

In addition to Uklon, other platforms operating in this market include Bolt and Uber. It is not officially announced what fate will befall Uklon. But in 2023, the platform’s co-founder Serhiy Smus gave a hint in an interview with ThePage.

You can look at the monobank dashboard, which records the total number of transactions on various services over time.

So what we see now:

• Uklon — 125.5 million payments
• Bolt — 101 million payments
• Uber — 30.9 million payments

That is, at least in mono, Uklon is the market leader, ahead of Bolt and far ahead of Uber.

Income and turnover

Let’s go further by the numbers. Uklon has LLC «Uklon Ukraine», which in 2024, according to Opendatabot, declared revenue of UAH 1.7 billion and net profit of UAH 232 million.

Although the numbers suggest that the amount of money passing through the Uklon platform may be significantly higher than this figure.

As stated in the announcement of the deal, 100,000 active driver-partners together fulfill more than 10 million Uklon orders every month.

The average check, as Uklon co-founder Serhiy Smus said in 2022, was 126 hryvnias in Ukraine at the time. And on Valentine’s Day this year (February 14, 2025), it jumped to 192 hryvnias.

If you simply multiply 10 million orders per month by UAH 126 of the average check, then the amount of money that passes through the platform per month will be UAH 1.260 billion. Over the year, it will be UAH 15.1 billion.

That is, you can focus on approximately the following order of figures. This amount of money is divided between the driver-partners (who get the majority) and the platform itself. Then the driver-partners themselves must pay tax on their income from the transportation services provided.

The commission that Uklon keeps for itself varies depending on the city. That is, if in Kyiv it is 23%, in Lviv it is 22%, then in Kharkiv it is 15%.

Assuming that the average commission in the country will be 20%, the Uklon platform can receive income in a year that will be approximately equal to 3 billion UAH (based on the company’s total turnover figure, which we calculated earlier — 15.1 billion UAH).

This is more than the revenue declared by Uklon Ukraine LLC for 2024 in Opendatabot, but given the active growth of the service, it can be assumed that this year the company may reach approximately this order of magnitude.

My conclusions

One great company buys another great company. Win-win. And before Kyivstar goes public, there’s news that will definitely increase the initial value of the shares. (I wrote about how much Kyivstar might cost on the stock exchange here).

We are waiting for synergy and joint offers. Top up your mobile account using bonuses for trips — why not?