Telecom Lead Europe: TeliaSonera has posted 3.5 percent
increase in net sales at SEK 25.69 billion in Q1 2012 against SEK 24.83 billion
in the same quarter previous year.
Net income decreased 15.9 percent to SEK 3.90 billion
from SEK 4.64 billion.
Free cash flow decreased 17.2 percent to SEK 2.19 billion
in Q1 2012 from SEK 2.64 billion due to higher cash CAPEX and higher interest
paid.
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.
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,” said Lars Nyberg, President and CEO.
The marginal growth in net sales is despite price
competition in many of its markets. TeliaSonera defended its core business
within mobility services as growth in data revenues compensated for the decline
in voice and messaging.
TeliaSonera has 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.
Within Broadband Sweden, the company sees a strong
customer demand for our fiber offering although our focus in the first quarter
has been to improve our internal processes.
In Finland, our second largest market, we have for some
time been in a negative trend and lost market share.
In order to sharpen profile and strengthen business and
the Sonera brand, the company has recruited Robert Andersson as president and
CEO of Sonera in Finland, who will also become a member of Group Management.
TeliaSonera will increase its stake in Ncell Nepal which
has a customer base of 7 million subscriptions.
The mobile giant also decided to divest its 18.6 percent
stake in Smart Mobile and exit from the competitive Cambodian mobile market.
We reiterate the outlook for 2012 and believe that our
continued work to develop our price models and scrutinize costs throughout the
organization will leave our EBITDA margin at the same level as last year,”
Nyberg added.
