Telia Company

History

Telia Company is the result of a 2002 merger between the Swedish and Finnish telecommunications companies, Telia and Sonera. This merger followed shortly after Telia's failed merger with Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor, now its chief competitor in the Nordic countries.

Before privatisation Telia Company was a state telephone monopoly. Sonera on the other hand had a monopoly only on trunk network calls, while most (c. 75%) of local telecommunication was provided by telephone cooperatives. The separate brand names Telia and Sonera have continued to be used in the Swedish and Finnish markets respectively. Of the stock, 37% is owned by the Swedish government, 3.2% by the Finnish government, and the rest by institutions, companies, and private investors worldwide.

Telia

The Swedish Kungl. Telegrafverket (literally: Royal Telegraph Agency) was founded in 1853, when the first electric telegraph line was established between Stockholm and Uppsala. Allmänna Telefon found an equipment supplier in Lars Magnus Ericsson. In this early competition, Telegrafverket with its brand Rikstelefon was a latecomer. However, by securing a national monopoly on long distance telephone lines, it was able with time to control and take over the local networks of quickly growing private telephone companies.

A de facto telephone monopoly position was reached around 1920, and never needed legal sanction. In 1953 the name was modernised to Televerket. On 1 July 1992 this huge government agency's regulating functions was split off into the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (Swedish: Post- och telestyrelsen, PTS), with similar functions as the Federal Communications Commission of the United States. The operation of the state radio and TV broadcast network was spun off into a company named Teracom. On 1 July 1993 the remaining telephone and mobile network operator was transformed into a government-owned shareholding company, named Telia AB. At the height of the dot-com bubble, on 13 June 2000, close to one-third of Telia's shares were introduced on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.

In the 1980s, Televerket was a pioneering mobile network operator with the NMT system, followed in the 1990s by GSM. Private competition in analogue mobile phone systems had already broken the telephone monopoly, and the growing internet allowed more opportunities for competitors. The most important of Telia's Swedish competitors in these areas has been Tele2. When PTS awarded four licenses for the 3rd generation mobile networks in December 2000, Telia was not among the winners, but later established an agreement to build a 3G network jointly with Tele2 using Tele2's licence. SUNAB was founded as the jointly owned company that would in turn build, own and operate the joint 3G network.

Sonera

The history of Sonera dates back to 1917, when Suomen Lennätinlaitos (Finnish Telegraph Agency) was founded. In 1927, the telegraph agency was merged with the Finnish Post to form a new agency, Post and Telegraph Agency. This agency governed all long distance and international calls until 1994, when competitors were allowed to enter the Finnish market. In the same year, the Post and Telegraph Agency was divided to form two companies, Suomen Posti Oy (Finnish Post), and Telecom Finland Oy. Telecom Finland then changed its name to Sonera in 1998.

After merger

During the run up to the 2006 general election the Swedish liberal-conservative Alliance stated as one of its policy aims to reduce government ownership in commercial entities, and specifically to sell its stake in TeliaSonera. The Alliance went on to win the election and formed a coalition government. The sale of TeliaSonera was however presented to the parliament only after the next election in 2010, when the Alliance lost its majority but stayed on as a minority administration.

On 16 March 2011 the Alliance administration lost a parliamentary vote on sale of publicly owned commercial entities, including TeliaSonera, when a coalition of all opposition parties - the Left Party, Social Democratic Party, Green Party and Sweden Democrats - united against the Alliance.

In the beginning of 2008, TeliaSonera announced measures to save nearly 500 million Euros which would include 2900 redundancies: 2000 from Sweden and 900 from Finland. France Télécom (now Orange S.A.) proposed a 33 billion Euro acquisition offer for TeliaSonera on 5 June 2008, which was promptly rejected by the company's board.

TeliaSonera International Carrier (AS1299) is a tier 1 carrier.

Operations

Telia Company is now the largest Nordic and Baltic fixed-voice, broadband, and mobile operator by revenue and customer base. It operates Europe's largest and fastest-growing wholesale IP backbone (AS1299) and is the 10th-largest global mobile group by consolidated customers (including ownership stakes in Turkcell, Yoigo, Megafon, NetCom, and others).

Afghanistan

TeliaSonera is a 12.25% stakeholder of the Afghanistan Roshan (telco) cellphone network.

Azerbaijan

On 15 May 2010 after Azercell went through rebranding, it joined the network of TeliaSonera.

Cambodia

TeliaSonera purchased a majority stake in Star-Cell in 2008 which was the number four player in the market at that time. By 2010 it exited Cambodia after a $100 million write down and collapse in subscriber numbers. It was subsequently taken over by a more dominant competitor Smart Mobile.

Denmark

In Denmark TeliaSonera operates a mobile operator (Telia), a mobile virtual network operator (Call Me), and a broadband supplier (Telia). The company started in 1995, the result of a merger between Telia Stofa and TeliaSonera. Telia Mobile is the third-largest operator and is in fierce competition with Telenor, which is number two in the market. Telia was the fourth operator to launch 3G services and is the only operator to have a nationwide EDGE network.

Telia Broadband was relaunched in 2008 because of the need for TeliaSonera to offer both mobile and broadband in all of their home markets (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland). Telia Broadband was the first operator to launch digital TV with their broadband at no extra cost. Stofa is mainly a cable TV operator, but also supplies broadband via the cable TV network.

Estonia

TeliaSonera owns 100% of Eesti Telekom. Eesti Telekom is one of the largest telecommunication companies in the Baltic countries and the largest telecommunications company in Estonia. TeliaSonera and the Estonian government reached a deal over the sale of Eesti Telekom in September 2009. On 20 January 2016, Eesti Telekom switched its name to Telia Eesti.

Finland

Sonera is the largest mobile operator in Finland and also one of the biggest providers of landline telephone and internet services. TeliaSonera also operates in Finland in the form of another company, Tele Finland Oy, which is a budget mobile operator.

On 23rd March 2017, Sonera and Tele Finland merged under the name of "Telia Finland".

Georgia

Since 2007 TeliaSonera has owned 58.55% of the Geocell company, while Turkcell owns the remaining 41.45%.

Kazakhstan

TeliaSonera operates in Kazakhstan under the brand Kcell.

Latvia

TeliaSonera owns 49% of LMT (24.5% as TeliaSonera AB and 24.5% as Sonera Holding B.V.). TeliaSonera also owns 49% of Lattelecom, which owns 23% of LMT, which owns Okarte, Amigo. It also owns 100% of Telia Latvija, a business cable operator and data centre operator.

Lithuania

TeliaSonera owns 88.15% of Teo LT, the largest landline phone operator in Lithuania, which recently purchased Omnitel, one of largest mobile network operators there. It was previously owned by TeliaSonera group.

In October 2015, TeliaSonera announced the merger of Teo and Omnitel, through the acquisition of Omnitel by Teo. The acquisition is expected to be finalised in the first quarter of 2016 at the latest.

In February 1st, 2017, Omnitel and Teo merged under the name of "Telia Lietuva".

Moldova

TeliaSonera owns a 74.3% see-through stake of the Moldovan mobile operator Moldcell through Fintur Holdings.

Nepal

TeliaSonera owned a majority stake in Ncell, the largest mobile operator in Nepal with USD 16.2 billion operating income. On 21 December 2015, TeliaSonera announced its exit from Ncell, selling its 60.4 percent of the shares to Malaysian telecommunications group Axiata. TeliaSonera exited Nepal without settling billions of Capital Gains Tax owed to Nepalese government.

Norway

In Norway Telia first entered after the de-regulation in 1998 as a virtual supplier of fixed telephone and Internet services. This was sold to Enitel during the merger attempt with Telenor, but Telia re-entered in 2000 with the purchase of one of the two mobile network operators, NetCom. In 2006 it also bought the virtual mobile provider Chess Communication.

1 March 2016, NetCom was rebranded as Telia.

Russia

TeliaSonera owns 25.2% of MegaFon, the second largest mobile phone operator in Russia.

Sweden

In Sweden, TeliaSonera operates under the consumer brands Telia and Halebop. On the business side, Skanova Access and Cygate are also used.

Tajikistan

TeliaSonera owns 60% of mobile phone operator Tcell. Tcell is a merger of Somoncom and Indigo Tajikistan; the merger was completed in July 2012.

Turkey

TeliaSonera owns 38% of Turkcell, the leading mobile operator in Turkey. Turkcell owns 80% of BeST in Belarus and 100% of Astelit in Ukraine

Uzbekistan

In 5 years, Ucell, the Uzbek subsidiary, increased the number of its subscribers from 400,000 to 9 million (2012). TeliaSonera is under preliminary investigation by Swedish prosecutors for allegations of bribery and money laundering associated with the acquisition of their 3G license in Uzbekistan from Takilant Limited, registered in Gibraltar. Under these investigations involving four Uzbek nationals, hundreds of millions of francs have been frozen in Swiss banks.

Evolution of the TeliaSonera's brand

When Telia and Sonera merged in 2002, TeliaSonera used a simple wordmark as the logo. In 2011, TeliaSonera released its new purple pebble logo to the corporation and its affiliate brands. The pebble was designed by Landor Associates.

In 2016, TeliaSonera presented an updated pebble brand profile, designed by Wolff Olins, to be used by all Telia brand companies.

Controversies

In the past TeliaSonera has been accused of indirectly supporting dictatorships, allowing them to do man-in-the-middle attacks on their citizens. This was disclosed in the Swedish TV show Uppdrag Granskning in 2012. TeliaSonera responded to these allegations with: "This is happening every day in all countries and applies to all operators. We are obliged to comply with the legislation of each country."

Further allegations have been presented in Swedish media and elsewhere that TeliaSonera may have illegally, through bribery, acquired licenses in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. As a result of internal investigations on these and other potential violations to the company's policies, several senior managers have been dismissed from the company.

TeliaSonera exited Nepal evading approximately 36 billions of Nepalese Rupees Capital Gains Tax owed to Nepalese government, when it sold its stake to Axiata, a Malaysian Telecom Group. In that context, Telia was criticized by media(TV) even in Sweden where its headquarter is located. Also, a group of Nepalese people started a movement 'No Tax.. No Ncell' to boycott services of Ncell in Nepal.