TeliaSonera makes major job cuts at home, looks to expand in Asia

Stockholm-based telecoms group TeliaSonera has confirmed that it will follow through with plans to cut 2,900 jobs over the next 18 months, including around 2,000 in Sweden with the remainder in Finland, as part of a plan to achieve savings of SEK5 billion (USD830 million) in 2008/09. The announcement followed last week’s second quarter results which showed growth heavily driven by foreign businesses including mobile operations in Russia, Turkey and the Eurasia division. TeliaSonera’s CEO Lars Nyberg also stated that the firm will pursue Asian acquisitions to generate further growth. For the first time, more than half of TeliaSonera’s quarterly operating income came from mobile operations in Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Moldova. In an interview with the Financial Times, Nyborg said: ‘I have been very clear from day one that I like emerging markets,’ adding he was looking for markets of between ten million and twenty million population with less than 20% cellular penetration.