TV division helps Telia Sweden withstand economic headwinds

Corporate results are coming thick and fast – with Swedish Telco Telia, which has interests across several European territories, the latest to unveil figures for Q3 2022. Overall, net sales increased 5.6% to €2,021 million while operating income increased to €287 million. For the first nine months of the financial year, net sales increased 2.5% to €5,991 million but operating income decreased to €761 million.

Allison Kirkby

Telia CEO Allison Kirkby said: “Telia’s third quarter results show continued commercial momentum with service revenue growing 2.3% and all our units delivering positive service revenue growth for the first time in several years. Macroeconomic headwinds, however, strengthened from a breeze to a mild storm during the summer.”

Drilling down into business units, TV played a key role in sustaining Telia Sweden’s growth “despite continued legacy headwinds. Service revenue growth was 2% in postpaid mobile, 4% in fixed broadband and 15% in TV. The TV offering was strengthened with the addition of streaming rights for the Swedish football league Allsvenskan, helping us prepare for the expiration of the Viaplay agreement at the end of September, which was admittedly unfortunate for our customers. Telia’s TV offering remains strong and includes premium sports rights such as Swedish ice hockey and Swedish football, Italian & Spanish football and UEFA Champions League.”

Kirkby said TV & Media reported “another quarter of record advertising revenues, up 5.9%. EBITDA increased 24% driven by higher ad revenues and lower content costs. After the end of the quarter, we announced that we will consolidate all linear and streaming content together under TV4 and MTV to simplify our organisation set-up and offer our customers viewing flexibility across one common platform – TV4 in Sweden and MTV in Finland. C More premium content will ultimately be transferred into TV4 and MTV, enabling a focused slate of Nordic content on fewer platforms.”