• Veon’s digital strategy is paying off
• BT takes a step closer to unloading its international business
• Orange shuffles its wholesale exec team pack

In today’s industry news roundup: Veon’s digital services now account for more than 14% of group revenues; BT is creating a standalone business for its international operations as it looks for an investor and/or partner; Orange has made some significant appointments in its wholesale operations; and much more!

Veon Group’s digital services strategy appears to be paying off. The international operator, which has more than 152 million mobile customers across six markets (Ukraine, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan), has reported an 8.9% year-on-year growth in first-quarter revenues to just over $1bn, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 13.7% to $439m. “Growth was underpinned by robust direct digital revenue growth, which grew by 50.2% year on year in reported currency, and by 54.3% year on year in local currency terms” to $147m. CEO Kaan Terzioglu stated: “Veon has started 2025 with strong momentum and delivered solid results that reflect both disciplined execution and strategic clarity. We are making rapid progress in our digital operator strategy. Our direct digital revenues rose by 50.2%, reaching $147m and now account for 14.3% of group revenues, up from 10.4% a year ago. We are delivering innovative and locally relevant digital services that enhance our customers’ lives every minute of the day – from financial services and healthcare to entertainment, education and enterprise applications. This is now complemented by our AI1440 vision, which integrates AI in native languages to truly augment human capabilities, well beyond process optimisation. Together, these strategies position Veon as a frontrunner in digital transformation across frontier markets. Looking ahead, we are on track to meet our FY2025 goals and are reaffirming our guidance for underlying local currency growth for total revenue of between 12% and 14% year on year, and underlying EBITDA growth of between 13% and 15% year on year.” To find out more about Veon’s digital services strategy, check out our exclusive interview with the operator’s chief digital operations officer, Lasha Tabidze.

BT Group has confirmed a Financial Times report (subscription required), which cited an internal memo sent to staff, that it is creating a standalone unit for its international operations as it figures out the optimum course of action for its non-domestic business. BT has been exploring different options for the international part of its business since Allison Kirkby took over as CEO in 2024 and unveiled her new back-to-basics strategy exactly a year ago when she stated: “As we move into the next phase of BT Group’s transformation, we are sharpening our focus to be better for our customers and the country, by accelerating the modernisation of our operations, and by exploring options to optimise our global business. This will create a simpler BT Group, fully focused on connecting the UK, and well positioned to generate significant growth for all our stakeholders.” Then earlier this year, Kirkby appointed Jon James as the new head of BT Business with a remit to focus on the needs of enterprise customers in the UK, while at the same time handing responsibility for the future of the international operations to Bas Burger, the executive that James effectively replaced. And in March, Bloomberg reported that BT had engaged in discussions about international partnerships with the likes of AT&T and Orange. Commenting on the new plan reported by the FT, a BT spokesperson noted in an email sent to TelecomTV: “The moves we announced internally today mark the next step in creating a standalone international unit, in line with BT Group’s strategy to focus on the UK.” Creating such a standalone unit will help BT, which recently agreed a deal to sell its operations in Italy as well as a slice of its business in Ireland, to more easily explore its options, which are: To continue running the international business as a fully owned unit but as a much slimmed down operation that isn’t loss-making; find a buyer for the business; or find an external partner/investor that can add scale to BT’s international operations. One of the latter two options would appear to be Kirby’s preference. While BT’s international business has been struggling in recent years, that has in part been due to the legacy nature of its infrastructure and services. Now, though, the new standalone unit has BT’s recently developed and launched Global Fabric platform in its arsenal and that should help to make the unit more relevant to customers’ needs, more efficient to run and more attractive to potential partners and/or investors. We’ll likely hear more about all of these developments when BT reports its full fiscal year results on 22 May.  

Orange has appointed Valérie Cussac as the CEO of Orange Wholesale International starting from 1 August, reporting to Orange Wholesale CEO Michaël Trabbia. She has been at Orange for 30 years, most recently managing Operational Excellence and Global Programs at Orange Cyberdefense as well as leading international projects in private wireless networks and industrial 5G and heading up the Smart Mobility Services business unit. In her new role, Cussac will strive to develop new products, such as 5G core network-as-a-service (let’s hope that doesn’t spawn a new industry abbreviation), and lead international infrastructure projects. She replaces Emmanuel Rochas, who has been appointed as the CEO of Orange’s towers subsidiary Totem, a role he will start on 1 June. (From 1 June to 31 July, Franck Morales, SVP Marketing and Business Development, will serve as acting CEO of Orange Wholesale International). Rochas, in turn, is taking over from Nicolas Roy, who announced on LinkedIn in early March that he is starting a “new role within Orange Group to lead the datacentre strategy and business development.” He noted: “Accessing, storing and processing data reliably, quickly and securely is central to AI. Once again, infrastructure is at the heart of this revolution and, among them, datacentres play a key role. As AI, cloud computing and digital sovereignty reshape our world, scalable and high-performance datacentres are critical to enabling the next wave of innovation. I’m excited to take on this challenge and help shape the future of Orange’s datacentre ecosystem.” It’s worth noting that Orange has a strategy that differs from many of its European telco peers in that it believes infrastructure asset ownership is key, which is why it has held onto its towers, for example, whereas others have divested and leased back such assets. 

Still with Orange…. Its Africa and Middle East division has teamed up with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to “develop more inclusive and sustainable digital connectivity in often underserved areas of West and Central Africa”. IFC brings its “expertise in development finance” to the partnership, while Orange Middle East and Africa “will capitalise on its local roots and strong network in the region. Thus, various telecommunications infrastructure construction and deployment projects (towers, fibre etc.) in the target countries will be carried out in the coming years,” the operator noted in this announcement. Jérôme Hénique, CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa (Orange MEA), stated: “This partnership with IFC is a major step forward in accelerating our ambition to bridge the digital divide by providing quality, sustainable and accessible connectivity for as many people as possible, especially in rural or underserved areas. By combining our forces, we want to build a more equitable digital future for all in Africa”. The news comes only weeks after Orange announced that Orange MEA ramped up its first-quarter revenues by 12.8% year on year to almost €2.05bn and produced double-digit revenue growth for the eighth consecutive quarter – see Africa still offers telco growth potential.

Telefónica has played down reports that it is aiming to take majority control of Virgin Media O2 (VMO2): Currently, Telefónica and Liberty Global each hold a 50% stake in the UK operator, which was formed when O2 and Virgin Media merged in 2021. Bloomberg reported that the Spanish operator was mulling over an offer for Liberty Global’s stake as it refocuses its strategic efforts on Europe and Brazil under new CEO Marc Murtra, but the telco’s chief operating officer, Emilio Gayo, said that both parties are happy with the joint ownership and that there are no proposals “at the moment” that would change the ownership structure of the UK operator. VMO2 recently reported a 4.2% year-on-year dip in first-quarter revenues to £2.48bn, while adjusted EBITDA dipped by 1.3% to £914.1m. The operator lost 44,000 broadband connections during the first quarter to take its total down to just over 5.69 million, while its mobile subscriber base (not including internet of things or wholesale) dipped to 22.87 million from 23.47 million a year earlier. VMO2, which currently has total debts of £21.8bn, has just announced the merger of its business-to-business unit, Virgin Media O2 Business, with the enterprise services operations of the Daisy Group to form a standalone company that will be 70% owned by VMO2.   

The influence of the US on Middle Eastern AI infrastructure developments is not restricted to Saudi Arabia, where new sovereign wealth fund-backed company Humain is building new facilities and exploring international opportunities. The US is also partnering with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the development of a major AI datacentre complex that will begin with a 1 gigawatt (GW) datacentre build in Abu Dhabi, with plans for it to be expanded to 5 GWs of capacity, making it the largest datacentre deployment outside the US, according to the US Commerce Department (as reported by CNN). 

– The staff, TelecomTV