Sweden-based Tele2 has reported a 2% year-on-year decline in revenues for the three months ended 30 June 2020 to SEK6.65 billion (USD727 million). End user service revenue was down by the same margin to SEK4.86 billion. Underlying EBITDA climbed 4% on an organic basis, however, to SEK2.27 billion, driven by cost reductions from 2019 and activities to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Second quarter net profit fell to SEK895 million from SEK2.13 billion last year, though the Q2 2019 result was positively impacted by one-off gains from the disposal of Tele2’s operations in Kazakhstan.
In operational terms, the Tele2 group claimed 7.2 million mobile customers in Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Germany at the end of June 2020, while it also served 893,000 fixed broadband users in its domestic market.
CEO Anders Nilsson commented: ‘Thanks to our efforts to refocus the company to defend underlying EBITDA, Tele2 faired relatively well in a quarter that has been difficult for the sector and society as a whole. We took a major step to assert our position as a leading telecommunications provider as we launched Sweden’s first public 5G network in the quarter.’