Telecom service provider Telenor on Thursday said its Capex (capital spending) reached $632 million (NOK 3,730 million) in the third quarter of 2013 against NOK 3,484 million in the second quarter.
Capex including license and spectrum was NOK 5,589 million.
Telenor will spend 13-14 percent of sales towards Capex this year from 12-14 percent earlier. In the first nine months of the year, Telenor Capex to sales was 13.2 percent and 14 percent in the third quarter, Telenor said.
Telenor revenue rose 1 percent to NOK 26 billion in third quarter.
“Based on the performance in the first three quarters and the outlook for the rest of the year, we revise the outlook for organic revenue growth to 1-2 percent and Capex to sales to 13-14 percent. We maintain our guidance of around 34 percent EBITDA margin,” said Jon Fredrik Baksaas, president and CEO of Telenor Group.
Mobile Internet
Mobile Internet expansion will be one of the strong focus areas of Telenor in Asia.
Telenor is considering this as a big opportunity as only around one out of four of Telenor’s customers in Asia currently have access to the Internet.
During this quarter, subscription and traffic revenues in Asia increased 9 percent.
Telenor added 240,000 and 279,000 customers in Thailand and Malaysia, respectively.
Recently, Grameenphone, a Telenor subsidiary in Bangladesh, launched 3G services to customers in central parts of the city of Dhaka.
Telenor targets at least 10 million customers on its recently launched 2.1 GHz network in Thailand.
The telecom operator is generating mobile Internet revenue in Europe as well – especially Sweden, and Norway.
In Denmark, Telenor is doing transformation programme which will run through 2014.
Telenor will launch telecom services in Myanmar in mid-2014.