VEON Ltd. (VEON)

[CashMoneyCarl]

Overview

VEON is a leading global provider of connectivity and internet services. Present in some of the world's most dynamic markets, VEON provides more than 240 million customers (including the Italy Joint Venture) with voice, fixed broadband, data and digital services. VEON currently offers services to customers in 12 countries: Russia, Italy (through our Italy Joint Venture), Pakistan, Algeria, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia and Georgia. Our business in Laos is currently classified as an asset held for sale. VEON's reporting structure is divided into three business units—Major markets (Russia and the Italy Joint Venture), Emerging Markets (Pakistan, Algeria and Bangladesh) and Eurasia (Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia and Georgia). We provide services under the "Beeline," "Kyivstar," "banglalink," "Jazz" and "Djezzy" brands. As of December 31, 2017, we had 39,938 employees. For a breakdown of total revenue by category of activity and geographic segments for each of the last three financial years, see " Item 5—Operating and Financial Review and Prospects ." In addition, the Italy Joint Venture provides services to customers in Italy under the "WIND" and "3" brands and had 29.5 million customers and 7,090 employees as of December 31, 2017.

In 2017, we rebranded from VimpelCom to VEON, and launched the VEON platform in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Pakistan, after launching in Italy in 2016, to reflect our strategy to move from being solely a telecommunications company to a company leveraging new technology platforms with an asset-light business model. Technology is continuing to revolutionize the way users communicate, travel, bank, shop, consume and are entertained. We are focused on digitalizing our core telecommunications business model to ensure that our customers can transact with us online on all dimensions, with the aim of ultimately leading to increased customer satisfaction and a potentially lower cost structure for our business. Furthermore, our new VEON platform leverages the re-engineering of our legacy systems