The Competition Committee has included Uklon UB on its list of digital platform operators with a dominant market position, the regulator’s press service reported.
Uklon UB is the Uzbek legal entity of Ukrainian ride-hailing platform Uklon. Under the decision, the company is considered dominant in the market for intermediary (aggregator) services for placing passenger transport orders and providing taxi services.
To prevent abuse of its dominant position, the company will be required to introduce an antitrust compliance system in accordance with competition law.
Uklon’s plans to enter Uzbekistan became known in April 2023, when the company posted several vacancies in the country. The platform launched in Tashkent in June 2023 and has gradually expanded to five cities in the Fergana Valley in recent months: Fergana, Margilan, Kokand, Namangan and Andijan.
In March 2025, Ukrainian mobile operator Kyivstar agreed to acquire a 97% stake in Uklon for $155.2 million. VEON, the group that includes the telecom operator, has announced plans to launch the ride-hailing platform in Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
In mid-October, the Competition Committee announced that it would review the ride-hailing market and pricing practices. The regulator cited fare increases during peak hours amid technical issues with Yandex Go, which sparked public criticism.
What the status means
Digital platforms may be classified as dominant if they benefit from network effects and meet at least one of two criteria:
Annual sales revenue exceeding 100,000 basic calculation units (BCUs), equivalent to 44 billion soums;
More than 50,000 monthly active end users or more than 3,000 monthly active business users.
The status may also be assigned regardless of revenue or user numbers if a platform accounts for more than 40% of a particular online services market. The classification will be reviewed every three years.
Digital platform operators with a dominant position or superior bargaining power are prohibited from engaging in practices that restrict competition. For example, they may not prevent businesses from dealing with users outside the platform.
They are also prohibited from using data belonging to businesses competing on the platform without permission, restricting the sale or purchase of competitors' products, or promoting their own goods and services on more favourable terms than those offered by platform users or third parties.
In addition, operators may not prevent users from installing third-party applications and services, unjustifiably reduce service quality, or restrict users' ability to switch to another provider.
The English version of this material was generated with the assistance of AI translation tools and may differ slightly from the original text.
