Telia Company changes its operating model: strengthens countries’ role, reduces number of personnel with the view to increasing profitability

Swedish telecommunications company Telia Company, AB, the largest shareholder of Telia Lietuva, AB (hereinafter ‘Telia Lietuva’ or ‘the Company’), holding 88.15 per cent of the Company’s shares, announces a change program that is set to simplify its operations in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The more decentralised and streamlined organisation will focus on local customers’ needs, while the Group intends to reduce its number of personnel by 3,000 during the full year of 2024.

In Lithuania, Telia Company Group plans to reduce the total number of employees by about 400, whereof approximately 200 at Telia Lietuva, and remaining – at Telia Global Services Lithuania, UAB, a fully owned subsidiary of Telia Company in Lithuania.

With the program, Telia Company aims to maximize the value of its network infrastructure and service offerings to sustain growth, increase efficiency and profitability, and improve its ability to serve its customers.

The Group will decentralise a major part of its common activities and will move decision making into the countries. Nevertheless, entities of Telia Company Group will further benefit from regional agreements and economies of scale.

Giedrė Kaminskaitė-Salters, CEO of Telia Lietuva, says: “The announced change of the Group’s business model gives us an opportunity to make strategically necessary decisions in Lithuania, the benefits of which we will see in the nearest future. Digitizing the business, decommissioning legacy systems, harnessing the breakthrough of artificial intelligence (AI) and attracting the best talent is our path to becoming a leading organization. Unfortunately, growing investment and talent retention also drives demand to optimize a number of employees: by the year end Telia Lietuva is planning to reduce it by 200. We have started consultations with trade union representatives and from our side will provide full support and appropriate compensation to redundant employees.”

It is expected that talks with Telia Lietuva’s trade unions will be over by mid-October, and a new organizational structure with less personnel will come into effect from December 2024. Now Telia Lietuva employs around 1,900 employees.

Telia Lietuva’s restructuring charges of the change program is expected to amount to approximately EUR 1 million, with expected annual savings of EUR 6.3 million.

Darius Džiaugys,
Head of Investor Relations,
tel. +370 5 236 7878,
e-mail: darius.dziaugys@telia.lt