TeliaSonera Posts Stable Q1 but Income Declines

TeliaSonera's Q1 net sales increased 3.5 percent to SEK 25,693 million (24,835). EBITDA, excluding non-recurring items, decreased 1.4 percent in local currencies and excluding acquisitions. In reported currency, EBITDA decreased 0.7 percent to SEK 8,824 million (8,890) and the margin decreased to 34.3 percent (35.8). Operating income, excluding non-recurring items, decreased 8.5 percent to SEK 6,641 million (7,258). Income from associated companies decreased 36.2 percent to SEK 1,033 million (1,619).


During the quarter the number of subscriptions increased by 1.2 million in the consolidated companies and by 1.1 million in the associated companies. The total number of subscriptions was 172.4 million.

Lars Nyberg, President and CEO of TeliaSonera, stated: “The organic growth rate improved in the first quarter compared with previous quarters. Eurasia continued to deliver double-digit growth, while revenues in Broadband Services were almost at the same level as last year. In Mobility Services, the growth was mainly driven by equipment sales."


"Despite price competition in many of our markets, we successfully defended our core business within Mobility Services as growth in data revenues compensated for the decline in voice and messaging. Changed customer behavior which leads to a mix shift in our business highlights the need to develop our business models and how we charge for our services going forward. We have been in the forefront stating that while prices for voice will continue to come down there must be a stronger correlation between usage and pricing of data. TeliaSonera is leading this change towards a new sustainable business model. We have been early in introducing tiered pricing of data, lower costs for data roaming and recently openly communicated that we will start to charge for mobile VoIP. This will be launched in Spain within a month and in Sweden for new subscriptions during the summer."http://www.teliasonera.com