TeliaSonera sets CAPEX targets

Swedish telecoms heavyweight TeliaSonera has set its level of annual CAPEX at 15% of service revenue in both 2014 and 2015, up from 14.3% in 2013 and 14.6% in 2012, while specifically planning to invest a cumulative SEK2 billion (USD277 million) on business transformation in 2015-2016 to increase competitiveness and reduce costs, and earmarking roughly SEK4 billion-SEK5 billion on expanding its Swedish fibre-optic network and improving mobile data services across its Eurasia region subsidiaries. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, TeliaSonera’s CEO Johan Dennelind stated that the two-year business transformation programme was aimed at achieving net savings with a yearly run rate of SEK2 billion during 2017, while saying that ‘TeliaSonera will invest to grow in our core business in the Nordics and Baltics, in taking Eurasia to the next level on the back of increased demand for mobile internet, and in areas that complement and strengthens our core business.’ The company also confirmed that it is maintaining its financial targets for this year, with consolidated group revenue in local currencies (excluding acquisitions and disposals) likely to be slightly below 2013’s total, and EBITDA (excluding one-off items) expected steady at around 35% of revenue.