Telenor increases Q1 revenue
May 6, 2025
Telenor Group has reported that it increased Q1 revenues “during a quarter of global economic instability due to fast-changing tariffs and geopolitical turmoil”. This unpredictability has also created new business opportunities for the Nordics telco. First quarter highlights include:
- Service revenues of NOK 16.1 billion (€1.3bn)
- Adjusted EBITDA of NOK 8.6 billion
- Free cash flow before M&A of NOK 3 billion
During the first quarter, Telenor delivered year-over-year organic growth in service revenues of 2.1 per cent, and organic EBITDA growth of 2 per cent.
“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,” commented CEO Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer.
In the Nordics, Telenor delivered 2.3 per cent organic growth in service revenues in the quarter, while organic EBITDA growth ended at 5.8 per cent 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,” added 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.
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 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,” concluded Fasmer.
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
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