Ukrtelekom PAT : Ukrtelecom took part in the Broadband Ukraine 2015 conference

Ukrtelecom became a participant of the Broadband Ukraine 2015 conference dedicated to the discussion of the major trends and challenges of the telecommunications market of Ukraine.

Such topics as interaction between operators, providers and the state, the prospects of the telecommunications market in the current year, marketing business opportunities with customer retention in a crisis, and the willingness of investors to invest in Ukrainian telecommunications assets were discussed during the Broadband Ukraine 2015.

According to Expert & Consulting, today, only 40% of households in Ukraine have access to fixed broadband Internet. The figure is 80% for the major cities and drops to 23% in cities with a population of less than 50 thousand people. Traditionally, the most difficult situation with broadband Internet access is in rural areas of Ukraine. The participants of the conference noted the key role of Ukrtelecom in providing small settlements with the Internet access and the elimination of the digital divide between urban and rural areas.

As Yaroslav Gumenyuk, Director of Product Management of Ukrtelecom JSC, stated, in the current year, the Operator will continue to implement its strategic program of geographic expansion of the broadband unlimited Internet coverage, including rural areas. Another direction to work on is to improve the attractiveness and usefulness of the services provided to customers, i.e., through bundle offers.

"In 2015, Ukrtelecom will continue to actively build new broadband Internet access sites in the regions of Ukraine. Along with this, the Operator is working on interesting products and attractive offers for customers" - said Yaroslav Gumenyuk. "Since the last year, Ukrtelecom has been providingInteractive TV to its customers in partnership with oll.tv . Thus, customers can get telecommunications services bundle which includes telephony, Internet and TV."

Conference participants agreed that, despite the economic difficulties in the country, the telecommunications market has prospects for development. Primarily, the prospects consist in increase of penetration of the Internet, which, as previously noted, is still rather low in Ukraine. In addition, operators and providers noted the tendency of constant increase in heavy content traffic (online audio, video, and other services), which encourages both customers to consume more, and operators to develop networks to provide the required quality of service.

About SCM

SCM is the professional investment company, the managing company for a major Ukrainian financial and industrial holding company. It includes businesses in metals and mining, power generation, banking and insurance, telecommunications, media and real estates, retail, clay mining, oil trading, agriculture, mechanical engineering, and transport business.

On October 4, 2013 Ukrtelecom JSC became part of SCM Group .

SCM Group includes the managing company SCM and all businesses in which the company invests its money and over which it holds control. The Group includes over 100 businesses in Ukraine (14 oblast), Russia, European Union (Italy, Great Britain, Bulgaria), Switzerland, and USA.

Oleg Popov is CEO of SCM.

100% of SCM shares are held by Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov.

SCM website: http://www.scm.com.ua/