Telenor Trims Guidance After 2Q Net Profit Misses

By Dominic Chopping

Norwegian telecom provider Telenor ASA (TEL.OS) trimmed its guidance for the year as it reported Tuesday second-quarter net profit that missed expectations.

The company now expects subscription and traffic revenue at around the 2018 level and a low-single-digit decline in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, having previously seen organic subscription and traffic revenue growth of 0-2% and organic Ebitda growth of 1-3% excluding its Thai operations.

Telenor's Thai business is now included in the guidance while a downgraded outlook for Malaysia and a provision in Bangladesh have also dragged on the group outlook.

Capital expenditure excluding licenses and spectrum is still expected at between 16 billion and 17 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.87 billion-$1.99 billion).

Telenor posted net profit for the period of NOK3.1 billion compared with NOK2.65 billion in the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose to NOK28.03 billion from NOK27.5 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet had expected net profit of NOK3.37 billion and revenue of NOK28.03 billion.

Net profit according to IFRS16 accounting standards rose 8.5% to NOK2.87 billion on revenue of NOK27.96 billion.

Telenor said it added 2.3 million new mobile subscribers to its networks during the quarter since the first quarter of this year. It added 1.4 million in Myanmar, 1.3 million in Bangladesh and 100,000 in Malaysia, partly offset by subscription losses of 400,000 in Pakistan and 100,000 in Thailand. Total mobile subscriptions were 178 million.

Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com; @domchopping @WSJNordics

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 16, 2019 01:59 ET (05:59 GMT)

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