Combining local
strengths – achieving
global excellence
JON FREDRIK BAKSAAS
President and CEO
2005 was Telenor’s best year ever. We have seen significant growth both in revenues and net additions in mobile. We have continued to develop our company, ensuring that Telenor remains one of the fastestgrowing providers of mobile communications worldwide, and we have put industrial ownership at the top of our agenda. As we move forward, we continue to build strong ties between all our international operations, developing a common mindset and a global corporate culture.
Our Global Coordination programme enables us to develop and promote best practice in all our operations, and as a result we are able to extract synergies. The programme is progressing well, and we are starting to see the results of our renewed efforts in this field. As we grow our company, we will continue to work as one collaborative international telecommunications group, drawing on local expertise and exploiting to the full our group processes and knowledge. We want to leverage what is common between all our markets and combine this with the local edge our companies already excel at.
To help us provide real customer satisfaction we have developed a new Telenor brand, with a new vision, new values and a renewed visual identity. The brand focuses and guides us for the future by making us stand out from the competition in a positive, distinct and relevant way and helps us deliver a tangible difference to our customers.
During 2005, we made several new acquisitions, strengthening our position both within mobile and broadband. In March, we launched our greenfield mobile operation in Pakistan, which at year-end 2005 had 1.9 million subscriptions. In the Nordic region, we greatly enhanced our overall position through the acquisitions of the mobile operator Vodafone Sweden, and the broadband suppliers Cybercity in Denmark, and Bredbandsbolaget in Sweden. We also increased our economic exposure in DTAC in Thailand, and this allowed us to consolidate the company. While we continue to look for new opportunities in emerging markets, we will pursue the same relentless customer focus across all our operations.
Working with colleagues from regions as far apart as Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe and Asia is both inspiring and highly rewarding. As we expand Telenor’s international footprint, we must all ensure that we are respectful of prevailing mindsets, cultures and religious beliefs in all the countries where we operate. Mobile communication is a key driver of economic growth, especially in financially constrained societies, but it can also contribute to bridge cultural gaps. At Telenor, we are working to become one company with one vision, but with local flavours and local competitiveness.
Going forward, we aim to build a unique group of companies in mature and emerging markets with more than 100 million customers making use of our services by 2008. Together we will continue to work towards our common goal: To help customers get the full benefit of communications services in their daily lives.
Jon Fredrik Baksaas
President and CEO