As you can see here, in each market, we have a variety of applications catering to the needs and desires of our customers. In Q3, we hit 93 million monthly active users, and I’m happy to share that at the end of October, 93 million user number is now above 100 million monthly active users, shows the dynamism in this vibrant space. Over the next three slides, we provide an overview of some of our most strategic digital platforms across our key verticals in the DO1440 strategy. Specifically, we focus in on financial services, entertainment, and self-care app segments. In Kazakhstan, Simply, the country’s only branchless neobank recorded a 2x year-on-year increase in monthly active users. In Pakistan, fintech JazzCash maintains its leading position, boasting 15.4 million monthly active users and a total transaction value of 1.4 trillion rupees, up 39% year-on-year.
The decline in monthly active users and number transactions at JazzCash was due to the post-pandemic era, discontinuation of zero or negative value accounts, which were impacting profitability negatively. Let me now pause here and talk about our entertainment vertical. Our two major entertainment platforms have delivered another quarter of positive user growth. In Pakistan, monthly active users of our Tamasha platform grew 4.4x year-on-year, while Bangladesh’s Toffee recorded a 72.2% increase. We have also smaller entertainment platforms in Kazakhstan, albeit they’re all number one in the countries that they are serving. BeeTV goes from strength to strength, monthly active users reaching 800,000, a rise of 24.1%. Moving to our self-service applications, our super app in Bangladesh, MyBL delivered another quarter of double digit year-on-year monthly active user growth, rising 43% to reach 7.6 million users.
We also highlight ongoing penetration gains, app users’ growth and engagement improvements across all our service platforms, specifically noting 20%-plus growth in monthly active users at MyBeeline Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. I will keep you posted on these categories moving onwards on a routine basis to demonstrate the traction we see in the digital services and digital operator 1440 strategy. I will stop there. And Joop, let me hand it over to you.
Joop Brakenhoff: Thanks, Kaan. I’ll outline some of our revenue highlights for the third quarter. We have delivered another quarter of double digit year-on-year local currency revenue growth across all of our six markets with group service revenue rising 19.8% year-on-year and total revenue up 19.3% year on year to reach $945 million. While our reported revenue also demonstrated growth, up 6.1% year-on-year. This was impacted by significant local currency depreciation across our markets, particularly in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Revenue growth was driven by market share gains and the expansion of our digital platforms across all our operations, as well as the effect of disciplined inflationary pricing. Let’s now take a closer look at our EBITDA and EBITDA margin.
VEON’s local currency EBITDA rose 30.6% year-on-year in the third quarter, while our EBITDA margin increased 4.4 percent points to 47%. It is important to note that EBITDA growth was impacted by extraordinary one-offs in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan in both the second and third quarter. Adjusting for these one-offs, normalized group EBITDA increased by 27% year-on-year in local currency terms. On Slide 32, we can direct our attention towards our CapEx and CapEx intensity. In line with our asset-light strategy and focus on maintaining strict financial discipline, CapEx and CapEx intensity have decreased year-on-year and fall within our full year 2023 guidance. CapEx in the third quarter stands at $131.1 million, the CapEx intensity of 17.8% helping drive our 4G network expansion and deliver on our 4G for all strategy.
Given the challenges of Pakistan and Ukraine, our CapEx spend was less than anticipated at the beginning of the year. We remain disciplined and flexible with respect to where, when, and how we will spend CapEx to ensure our customers have the best service possible across our platforms. Moving now to some important balance sheet metrics. Let me outline our debt and liquidity positions. At the end of the third quarter, the group’s liquidity position remains strong, with a total cash position of $2.2 billion, excluding banking operations in Pakistan, with $1.8 billion of this cash held at HQ. At a local company level VEON’s operations continue to be self-sufficient from a funding perspective. In September, VEON initiated a full and early redemption of notes due mature in December ’23 and June 2024, which led to a meaningful reduction in reported gross debt levels.
Outside of the Q3 2023 reporting period, October 2023 contained numerous transactions that have had a material impact on the group’s financial position, specifically, the sale of our Russian assets and the repayment of VEON Holding of 5.95% notes maturing in October 2023. Adjusting for both events on a pro forma basis, VEON net debt, including leases, stands at $2.7 billion, representing a significant reduction from $8.2 billion of net debt 12 months ago. We note $1.6 billion of net debt is at HQ level. Our cash balance stands at $1.7 billion. Of it, $1.3 billion is at HQ. Moving on to the highlights for the nine months of 2023. VEON once again reported — recorded double digit local currency revenue and EBITDA growth with revenue rising 18.2% year-on-year and EBITDA up 18.1% year-on-year.
These figures demonstrate the continued impact of our digital operating strategy across our markets. While inflationary pricing continues to play a role in increasing revenues, revenue growth for Q3 is aligned with our full year guidance, which we revised outlook at the end of the second quarter. We have repeatedly said that we’re embarking on a new era as a leaner, well-capitalized VEON, and this vision is reflected in our continued focus on cost controls. CapEx declined by 31% year-on-year with CapEx intensity turning lower to 14.3%, while our EBITDA margin stands at 45.4%. The process of selling of our Russian assets marked a milestone moment in our transition to a new VEON and has led to substantial degrees of debt levels with gross debt reducing from $11.4 billion to $4.3 billion year-on-year, a decrease of 62% and net debt reducing from $8.2 billion to $2.1 billion year-on-year, a decrease of 74%.
