TeliaSonera 3rd-Quarter Profits Up Slighty

­TeliaSonera has reported that its 3rd-quarter net sales increased by 4.8 percent to SEK 27.1 billion (US$3.9 billion), while net income rose to SEK 5 billion (US$722 million), from SEK 4.8 billion a year ago. EBITDA, excluding non-recurring items, increased 9.1 percent to SEK 9.8 billion (US$1.4 billion) and the margin to 36.1 percent, from 34.7%. The increase in local currencies and excluding acquisitions was 4.3 percent.

During the quarter the number of subscriptions grew by 4.2 million, of which 1.4 million new subscriptions in the majority-owned operations and 2.8 million in the associated companies, totaling 143.9 million.

Comments by Lars Nyberg, President and CEO "During the third quarter we reported the highest EBITDA, excluding non-recurring items, in the company's history. It is also satisfactory that operating income improved 3 percent com-pared to last year, despite a notably lower income from associated companies driven by currency fluctuations and one-off items. Due to a healthy mix of mature and emerging mar-kets, we have been able to keep our revenues in local currencies unchanged for the first nine months compared to the same period last year. I see this as an achievement given that the telecom sector is pressured by lower economic activity, regulatory intervention and re-duced roaming due to decreased business travel."

"It is also encouraging that after focusing on improving the quality of the network in Nepal, the operation that we acquired a year ago, we were ready to increase marketing activities in early October and the initial response from this campaign is promising.

The situation in the Baltic countries remains challenging and it is too early to talk about any green shoots in the economy. However, we have demonstrated our long-term commitment to this region by increasing our ownership in Eesti Telekom in Estonia and TEO in Lithuania from 60 percent to approximately 98 percent and 65 percent respectively. Following the completion of the offer for Eesti Telekom, we decided to initiate a squeeze-out process. In general, we will continue to look for opportunities to increase ownership in our core holdings."

The group outlook for 2009 remains unchanged from the second quarter report 2009.

Posted to the site on 28th October 2009