The number of Beeline subscribers is 800K more than second-ranked Kcell.
Beeline has took the lead in number of subscribers in Kazakhstan. Аt the end of the third quarter, the number of subscribers of the cellular operator reached 10 million. Such an achievement was recorded for the first time in the entire 20-year history of the company.
As of today, the gap between second-ranked Kcell and Beeline is 800K subscribers.
“This is a fundamental achievement for us. This is a result of the company’s activities for over 20 years of existence. Beeline is not just a mobile operator, but a universal market player,” – said Alexander Komarov, CEO of Beeline Kazakhstan.
“Currently, Beeline is setting sight on revenue leadership” – noted the CEO of the Company.
In the third quarter Beeline fulfilled its commitment to build an LTE network. Belline was the first operator who launched a chat bot for working with clients.
Beeline Kazakhstan also took the lead in introduction of mobile financial services. The company has already released the second type of payment cards. The first payment cards were combined with the balance of the phone Visa and Mastercard, the debit card was launched in November.
In addition, Beeline is developing the fares payment using the mobile balance.
“We have a technolgy, and it is completely honed. People are willing to pay fares in buses using new technological solutions. If the Government desires, we can introduce this technology throughout the country within a year. Each city develops electronic payment in its own way. In some cities, we did not face difficulties in development, in some cities we developed through thick and thin. In Astana we had good relationships with city authorities, but in Almaty it was somewhat difficult” – commented Alexander Komarov.
The company is actively introducing and developing the Internet of things. The project for instalation of smart gas meters has shown good results in Kostanay and will be implemented in other cities of Kazakhstan.
Regarding the Government announcement made on November 26 about the introduction of affordable social tariffs, Alexander Komarov noted that the problem of the high cost of cellular communication was mostly baseless.
“We are very social mobile operator, we are serving the largest part of the low-income rural population. People are more concerned about the problem of access to modern communication services. But if the government sees the problem in prices, we will consider the ways of improvement of our tariff “Pensionary”, – he said.
Alexander Komarov is 80 % sure that the merger of Kazakhtelecom and Kcell will occur next year.
“We will operate ordinarily,” – he shared his expectations in the case of merger of operators. – We have a competitive advantage. We are universal operator, and we are self-sustainable. In the next 2-3 years, they will go through technical integrations and consequently significant changes. This means opportunities for us. We will face key challenges after five years”.
