TeliaSonera Q3 tops forecast on smartphones

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN: Nordic telecommunications firm TeliaSonera raised its 2010 outlook on Monday after posting higher-than-expected quarterly profits due to smartphone usage at home and economic recovery in emerging markets.

After the global downturn, telecoms operators are now seeing revenues start to recover. Economies in the Nordic region have outpaced rivals, boosting sales of smartphones such as Apple's iPhone and driving up revenues for regional operators Tele2, Telenor and TeliaSonera.

Strong emerging market operations have been another engine of growth, with Tele2's profits boosted by Russia and TeliaSonera's by operations including Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Georgia.

Costs also came down during the crisis, and Telia said in a statement it delivered its best result in the third quarter.

"We have again raised our net sales outlook for the full year, and we now believe our EBITDA margin will be higher in 2010 compared to last year," Chief Executive Lars Nyberg said.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation and excluding one-offs were 9.8 billion crowns ($1.47 billion).

Sales for TeliaSonera, the Nordic region's biggest operator by market capitalisation, were 26.8 billion.

The mean core profit forecast in a Reuters poll was 9.6 billion Swedish crowns on sales of 26.8 billion.

In Sweden and Finland, TeliaSonera got a boost from more use of smartphones with PC-like functions and links to social networking sites, pushing up data traffic and revenues.

The group's mobile operations also got a boost from the ongoing turnaround of its Spanish unit Yoigo.

The core loss in Spain fell to 131 million crowns from 209 million the year before, and TeliaSonera said it still expected Yoigo to make a profit in the fourth quarter this year.

TeliaSonera's Eurasian operations, which have driven growth in recent quarters, saw net sales rise 16 percent year-on-year while the EBITDA margin also grew.