Telenor Group Bears Decreased Profits

Norway based, Telenor Group has reported a slide in fourth-quarter profits to NOK 2.21 billion (US$330 million), from NOK 7.63 billion (US$1.13 billion) a year earlier. The decline was due to one-off gains in 2007 no longer appearing on the accounts. Sales rose 11 percent to NOK 26.36 billion (US$3.393 billion).
“The overall trends seen in the third quarter continued into the fourth quarter with stable organic revenue growth combined with strong margins in several operations, particularly in Serbia and Bangladesh as well as a rebound in Pakistan. During the quarter, our operations added 5.5 million mobile subscriptions, reaching a total of 164 million,” said President and CEO of Telenor, Jon Fredrik Baksaas.
The capex level in the quarter was high, mainly due to completion of major projects and network roll-out in Asia, as well as investments in the Nordic region related to successful market uptake of mobile broadband. The telecom sector has so far been less affected by the global economic slowdown than other industries; however we expect a more challenging business environment going forward. As a result, the focus in 2009 will be on cost efficiency and capex control,” Baksaas said.
President re-confirmed that Telenor’s investment in India would be paid through debt and reserves, first of its kind practice by Telenor.
Telenor’s performance in Pakistan is seen positive, with a slight increase in ARPU that remained Rs. 228 compared to Rs. 214 in last quarter.Pakistan in total added 916,000 subscribers during the quarter, while the estimated subscription market share remained stable at 21%. Total revenues increased by 20% mainly due to a subscription growth of approximately 5 million during 2008.

Telenor Pakistan’s Capital expenditure increased due to high investments in network quality and capacity. Large network roll-out deliveries were completed during the fourth quarter.

Telenor to Expand its SMS Traffic Capacity

Telenor Pakistan has selected Acision SMSC to expand its messaging capacity to cater for continued SMS traffic growth. With a capacity expansion of up to 250%, TelenorPakistan is preparing itself to meet the messaging requirements of its fast growing subscriber base.
The Pakistan mobile market is experiencing rapid subscriber growth with thousands of customers signing up every month. The growth in subscriber rate has consequently led way to triple digit growth in messaging traffic over the last year. The Acision SMSC offers Telenor Pakistan a complete solution to support the operator’s entire SMS business managing enormous messaging volumes with undisputed quality of service. In 2007, Telenor Pakistan together with Acision conducted a messaging capacity upgrade to cater for 12 million subscribers. As of January 2009, the subscriber base has reached the 19 million mark, so an increase in messaging infrastructure capacity to meet anticipated messaging volumes was required.
Chief Technical Officer, Telenor Pakistan, Peter Anthony Dindial commented, “For us, it is crucial to tap into the potential of the Pakistan mobile market. To do this, we must meet the growing needs of our subscribers and offer them reliable and high quality services that they demand and deserve. Telenor and Acision have a relationship that spans the globe across all Telenor entities. Based on our past experience with the Acision SMSC, we recognise that having a reliable system is absolutely critical in high volume traffic scenarios, enabling Telenor Pakistan to offer subscriber services without an incident or any downtime.”
Boudewijn Pesch, Managing Director for Acision in Asia Pacific, added: “SMS continues to be the critical source of a mobile operator’s mobile data revenues. For Telenor Pakistan, growing and protecting this revenue base is a fundamental business objective. Again, Telenor Pakistan has selected Acision to deliver a highly stable, high performance messaging solution. With a strong track record in global deployments, the Acision SMSC continues to be the top choice for operators with high volume data services.”

Telenor Introduces New Postpaid Packages

Early feedback about Telenor’s new postpaid package is that they are simple, pleasant and doable. A new idea has been indulged of offering free minutes for not only calls but for value added services, other network calls, GPRS or any other services that customers will use.
Telenor’s postpaid Packages come in three plans, one stays at Rs. 150 line rent another at Rs. 500 while third’s line rent is Rs. 1500. Call rates for all packages are same (something not comprehendible), i.e. Rs. 0.50 for on-net calls and Rs. 0.75 for off-net calls (for 30 second billing pulse), only difference is the amount of free minutes that customers can use.
There is another interesting thing that you will notice in ADs and campaign theme is the brand color, yes Telenor has changed the brand tone to start over the race with new policy and tactics, in a similar way they did with Telenor Talkshawk couple of years back.
Following tables will help you understand packages more easily