TeliaSonera January-September 2008
Growing sales and strong EBITDA
Nine-month period
• Net sales increased 5.7 percent to SEK 75,489 million (71,423). In local curren-cies net sales rose 5.2 percent.
• Net income attributable to shareholders of the parent company increased to SEK 13,367 million (13,207) and earnings per share to SEK 2.98 (2.94).
• Free cash flow decreased to SEK 6,410 million (11,165), mainly due to higher CAPEX and no one-off dividends from associated companies.
Third quarter
• Net sales increased 4.1 percent to SEK 25,817 million (24,798). In local curren-cies net sales rose 3.3 percent.
• EBITDA, excluding non-recurring items, increased to SEK 8,949 million (8,714) and the margin was 34.7 percent (35.1).
• Operating income, excluding non-recurring items, was SEK 8,203 million (8,354).
• Net income attributable to shareholders of the parent company was SEK 4,772 million (5,399) and earnings per share SEK 1.06 (1.20).
• Free cash flow decreased to SEK 2,829 million (5,078), mainly due to the timing of Turkcell Holding’s dividend payment and a one-off dividend from the associ-ated company Telefos in the comparable period.
• The number of subscriptions reached 127.9 million at the end of the third
quarter with 1.2 million new subscriptions in the majority-owned operations and 3.8 million in the associated companies, compared to the end of the second quarter 2008.
• The group outlook for 2008 remains unchanged.
Comments by Lars Nyberg, President and CEO
“Third quarter performance was good with growing sales and strong EBITDA, driven by Mobility Services and Eurasia. We successfully managed to protect margins in Mobility Services despite intense competition and regulatory intervention in the form of lower interconnect and roaming fees. Sales in Broadband Services were essentially flat in abso-lute terms, but there is a considerable change in the underlying product mix, which puts pressure on margins. Improving operational efficiency remains one of our top priorities.
Another top priority is to grow our business in fast-growing and profitable markets. In October 2008 we took a further important step by entering two new high-growth emerging markets, Nepal and Cambodia.
We are in a period of global financial turmoil and it is very difficult to project how long it will last. However, TeliaSonera has a strong balance sheet and operates in a relatively non-cyclical industry. Therefore, we see no immediate effects of changing customer be-havior in our operations. Regulatory intervention, intense competition and customer mi-gration remain the primary challenges. We continue investing in high quality networks and new services that improve the productivity and flexibility of our customers, and continue looking for new investment opportunities.”
Questions regarding the reports:
TeliaSonera AB
Investor Relations
SE–106 63 Stockholm, Sweden
Tel. +46 8 504 550 00
Fax +46 8 611 46 42
www.teliasonera.com/ir