According to a statement from Sigve Brekke, Chief Executive of Norway’s Telenor, the telecommunication company expects its large Asian operations to gradually recover from the COVID-19 pandemic in the second half of 2021.
Sigve Brekke stated that all markets including the company’s Asia’s subsidiaries will still be impacted by government responsive measures in regards to the spread of Covid-19 in the coming months but Telenor expects a gradual recovery in the Asian market during the second half of 2021. In addition, Telenor anticipates largely unchanged revenues and profit in 2021 compared to last year.
Telenor serves 182 million customers in nine countries across Europe and Asia and the company’s adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for October-December rose 0.9% year-on-year to NOK 13.5 billion.
Telenor’s company shares have still decreased by 13 percent in the last 12 months despite a rise of 1.8 percent in early trade, outperforming a 1.2 percent rise in the Oslo stock market. Through streamlining operations including excluding the company’s acquisition of Finnish telecom firm DNA and adjusting for currency effects, Telenor managed to cut operation costs by 7 percent year-on-year in the final quarter of last year while the company’s underlying subscriber and traffic revenue dropped 3 percent.
Telenor’s fourth-quarter revenues decreased to NOK 30.9 billion from NOK 31.7 billion a year ago.
