Kazakhstan H1 2026 earnings: Kcell's report now carries a going concern section

Five of the fourteen issuers in our Kazakh coverage have disclosed the half-year ended 30 June 2026. Every figure below was checked page by page against the reports themselves: the automated parser produced four different kinds of error on these companies. Across these five the main point is visible - almost nowhere is the profit growth operational.

- Kcell: net profit 7,912mn tenge (+40.5%), its best half-year in three years. But operating cash flow fell from 43,394 to 15,050mn, capex was 52,634mn, and free cash flow came in at minus 37.6bn.

- Kcell's report now carries a going concern section: current liabilities exceeded current assets by 43,352mn tenge.

- KEGOC: revenue 240,073mn (+31.1%), net profit 54,624mn (+59.4%). It is the only name where profit outrunning revenue is operational - cost of sales rose 15.8% against revenue up 31.1%.

- KazTransOil: operating profit up 6.7% while net profit rose 33.4% - the difference came from finance income of 14,628mn against 6,610mn, earned on deposits at 15-17.85%.

- Halyk is the only one with falling profit: 447,567mn tenge, down 15.3%. Air Astana swung to a loss of 21mn dollars on revenue up 16.1%.

What this says about the market

Three of the five disclosed companies grew profit, but in none of them is that growth purely operational. At Kcell it is funded by debt against negative free cash flow; at KazTransOil it comes from interest income at high policy rates; and only at KEGOC does the outperformance come from the business itself - and even there it is paid for by a third of additional debt in six months.

The practical conclusion: headline profit tells you nothing about this market this season. Look at operating cash flow and at what paid for the growth.

Who is missing and why

KazMunayGas, Kaspi.kz, Kazakhtelecom, ForteBank and Bank CenterCredit have not disclosed the half-year yet.

Kazatomprom has disclosed it, and that one is on us: the six-month 2026 report is on the company's website but has not yet made it into our data.

AltynGold and Solidcore report semi-annually but publish in September: last year Solidcore released its half-year report on 11 September.

Freedom Holding is left out of the comparison: its financial year ends on 31 March, so the period ending 30 June is its first fiscal quarter, not a calendar half-year.