Telia Delivers Strongest Results in Years in Q4
Telia Estonia's operating profit reached €21.2 million in Q4 2016 growing 16.5% year-on-year. The company's revenue for the period amounted to €76.2.
According to Dan Strömberg, CEO at Telia Estonia, 2016 was the year of many changes – the company implemented a new business name and brand identity, and updated its organizational structure. Alongside all this, the year ended with good results.
In 2016, the revenue of Telia Estonia reached €289 million, the operating profit was €85.6 million, and the growth was seen in all areas – TV, mobile, and broadband.
Mobile voice and mobile data
In 2016, Telia installed 399 new mobile base stations and built more than 130 in-house solutions.
In January, Telia made it possible for its Mobile Life residential and business customers to use mobile data services in the Nordic and Baltic countries just as they do at home. At the end of March, the same principle was applied to voice services. Customers received these changes very well, and already in a few months the mobile data usage of Telia customers traveling in the Nordic and Baltic countries increased by multi-folds.
Cooperation with Ericsson to launch 5G services in Tallinn and Stockholm in 2018 continued throughout the whole year.
Telia was the only mobile carrier to reach download speed of 1 Gbps during testing, and began offering VoLTE calls.
At the end of 2016, Telia had more than 900,000 mobile services customers, which is 38,000 more compared to the previous year (a 4.4% increase).
Broadband
In the beginning of last year, Telia introduced the new 4G Home Internet service in Estonia. This service enables to use mobile data and TV services in places where cable does not reach. 4G Home Internet offers broadband data over 4G mobile network. The service has become very popular with thousands of subscribes across Estonia.
At the end of 2016, Telia had 233,000 broadband subscribers, which is 2,000 more compared to the previous year (a 0.9% increase).
TV
In March last year, Telia and FOX launched an on-demand TV watching service FOXplay, which enables ad-free access to the best TV shows shown on FOX and FOX Life. This is great news for Telia customers, because FOXplay was added to the main TV package for free.
Telia continued its successful cooperation with local movie producers and brought box office movies like "The Days That Confused" and "The Class Reunion" to the Telia video rental right after they left the theatres. These movies also became the Telia video rental service's most watched releases in 2016.
During the 2016, the customers continued to migrate from the old smartTV platform to the old Telia TV platform. By the end of the year, 140,000 customers were using the new platform. In total Telia TV had 177,000 subscribers, which is 3,000 more compared to the previous year (a 1.7% increase).
IT and innovation
In March, University of Tartu and Telia opened an Internet of Things lab in Tartu. This is a one-of-a-kind lab across Estonia and the Baltics. It is equipped as a smart home and smart office, which can be controlled centrally over the internet. The devices in the lab are used by mobile and cloud computing scientist from the University of Tartu. Additionally, UT Institute of Computer Science is able to test and create new solutions in the IoT field and develop high-end technology and new business ideas.
In its second year, VUNK, the Telia business ideas accelerator, selected three business ideas with the best potential. 35 business ideas applied to the VUNK program in 2016, and of these, Bytesight, CADirect, and HypeSilo were picked out as the top three, each receiving an award of €10,000 from Telia.
In November, Telia Estonia bought IT services business from AK Süsteemid, a company which was founded in 1997. AK Süsteemid is focused on long-term relationships by offering modern infrastructure solutions and related consultation, design and development services.
Telia Estonia has 1,800 employees. The company is the market leader in all of its focus areas. This year, Telia will continue with the development of Internet and IT business segments, and plans to launch new ICT services.