TeliaSonera January-September 2009

TeliaSonera January-September 2009

Steady progress resulted in highest EBITDA to date

Third quarter

•  Net sales increased 4.8 percent to SEK 27,069 million (25,817). Net sales in
local currencies and excluding acquisitions were unchanged.
•  The addressable cost base in local currencies and excluding acquisitions
de-creased 4.8 percent.
•  EBITDA, excluding non-recurring items, increased 9.1 percent to SEK 9,763
million (8,949) and the margin to 36.1 percent (34.7). The increase in local
currencies and excluding acquisitions was 4.3 percent.
•  Operating income, excluding non-recurring items, increased 3.0 percent to SEK
8,453 million (8,203).
•  Net income attributable to owners of the parent company rose to SEK 5,043
million (4,772) and earnings per share to SEK 1.12 (1.06).
•  Free cash flow rose to SEK 4,583 million (2,829) due to higher EBITDA and
ap-proximately SEK 1.2 billion in dividend from Turkcell Holding.
•  During the quarter the number of subscriptions grew by 4.2 million, of which
1.4 million new subscriptions in the majority-owned operations and 2.8 million
in the associated companies, totaling 143.9 million.
•  Group outlook for 2009 remains unchanged from the second quarter report 2009.

Nine-month period

•  Net sales increased 8.3 percent to SEK 81,751 million (75,489). Net sales in
local currencies and excluding acquisitions were unchanged.
•  Net income attributable to owners of the parent company increased to SEK
13,952 million (13,367) and earnings per share to SEK 3.11 (2.98).
•  Free cash flow rose to SEK 12,364 million (6,410).


(Table included in attached pdf)


Comments by Lars Nyberg, President and CEO

“During the third quarter we reported the highest EBITDA, excluding
non-recurring items, in the company's history. It is also satisfactory that
operating income improved 3 percent com-pared to last year, despite a notably
lower income from associated companies driven by currency fluctuations and
one-off items. Due to a healthy mix of mature and emerging mar-kets, we have
been able to keep our revenues in local currencies unchanged for the first nine
months compared to the same period last year. I see this as an achievement given
that the telecom sector is pressured by lower economic activity, regulatory
intervention and re-duced roaming due to decreased business travel.

The strong trend for mobile data and mobile broadband continued and we are
confident that we will launch 4G services in Stockholm and Oslo as one of the
first operators in the world. A pre-requisite for delivering dramatically
increased speed is the availability of devices and we see our agreement with
Samsung to deliver modems as an important milestone. We are positive that the
tender process for 4G licenses will commence in the other Nordic countries later
this year or early next year.

It is also encouraging that after focusing on improving the quality of the
network in Nepal, the operation that we acquired a year ago, we were ready to
increase marketing activities in early October and the initial response from
this campaign is promising.

The situation in the Baltic countries remains challenging and it is too early to
talk about any green shoots in the economy. However, we have demonstrated our
long-term commitment to this region by increasing our ownership in Eesti Telekom
in Estonia and TEO in Lithuania from 60 percent to approximately 98 percent and
65 percent respectively. Following the completion of the offer for Eesti
Telekom, we decided to initiate a squeeze-out process. In general, we will
continue to look for opportunities to increase ownership in our core holdings.

We are making steady progress in our efforts to reduce structural costs. Our
addressable cost base has been reduced by 4.4 percent, in local currencies and
excluding acquisitions, for the first nine months and we can also see effects
within Mobility Services this quarter. We remain committed that our EBITDA
margin for 2009 will be higher than last year and we continue to scrutinize ways
to preserve a strong free cash flow generation.”



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