Steady course in turbulent times
Fornebu, Norway - May 6, 2025 - Telenor Group increased its revenues during a quarter of global economic instability due to fast-changing tariffs and geopolitical turmoil. This unpredictability has also created new business opportunities in the Nordics.
First quarter highlights:
- Service revenues of NOK 16.1 billion in the quarter
- Adjusted EBITDA of NOK 8.6 billion in the quarter
- Free cash flow before M&A of NOK 3.0 billion in the quarter
During the first quarter, Telenor delivered year-over-year organic growth in service revenues of 2.1 percent, and organic EBITDA growth of 2.0 percent.
- We live in turbulent times. The global economy and world trade has been thrown into disarray by unpredictable and fast-changing tariffs. So far, our business is not directly affected, but we monitor how this uncertainty may affect Telenor and our customers, both operationally and financially, says CEO Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer.
Increasing revenues in the Nordics
In the Nordics, Telenor delivered 2.3 percent organic growth in service revenues in the quarter, while organic EBITDA growth ended at 5.8 percent due to efficiency initiatives.
- We are pleased with our performance in the Nordics. Competition remains strong, but we continue to grow revenues above inflation on an organic basis. In Norway our new customer-friendly handset solution ('Splitt') and fraud-call alerts have been well received by customers. Finland remained our top-performing market, generating 9 per cent adjusted EBITDA growth in the quarter, says Fasmer.
In Bangladesh, Grameenphone is showing a quarter-on-quarter growth improvement in the wake of last summer’s unrest. Telenor Pakistan delivers strong results amid improving market conditions.
Opportunities to create value
Although geopolitics turbulence remains a concern, Telenor also sees that this drives opportunities for sovereign and regional solutions.
Recently, Telenor Amp-owned KNL secured a ten-year contract to deliver cutting-edge military communications technology to the defence forces of Sweden and Finland.
Telenor AI Factory is Norway's first fully integrated platform for generative artificial intelligence. The factory leverages NVIDIA's full-stack AI platform and will process Norwegian data on Norwegian soil. This sovereign AI initiative was launched last autumn and has been well received by customers. The recent geopolitical concern has led to further interest from customers and Telenor is now preparing to scale up with a four-fold increase in GPU capacity towards the end of the year.
- We continue to build on the strong trust of our customers and the resilience of our digital infrastructure. It is also important to stand up for our common values. We have certainly done this in the first quarter. I am proud that we continue to see opportunities and create value even in more challenging times.
Strong cash flow
Free cash flow before M&A and potential items reached NOK 3.0 billion in the first quarter. The strong cash flow is primarily driven by strong EBITDA and favorable timing effects from working capital and capex payments.
Telenor's ambition for the current year is a free cash flow of around NOK 13 billion, before M&A.
Financial outlook for 2025:
- Low single-digit organic growth in Nordic service revenues
- Mid-single-digit organic growth in EBITDA in the Nordics
- For the Nordic business, capex excl. leases are expected to account for around 14% of revenues
- Low-to-mid single-digit organic growth in the Group's EBITDA
- Free cash flow of around NOK 13 billion before M&A
For further questions, please contact:
Thomas Midteide, Chief Communications Officer, mobile
Frank Maaø, SVP Capital Markets and Investor Relations, mobile
