Telia Company
Telia Company AB is a Swedish multinational telecommunications company and mobile network operator present in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Telia used to own TV4 Media which includes TV4 in Sweden, MTV Oy in Finland, and C More Entertainment after acquiring them in 2019. Telia sold TV4 Media to Schibsted in 2025 for 6.55 Million Kronor.
The company is headquartered in Solna and its stock is traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.
The company has been linked to corruption scandals in its dealings with the regimes in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. Telia's bribery scandal in relation to the Ilham Aliyev regime in Azerbaijan has been described as "possibly the largest bribery in Swedish history."
History
Telia Company in its current form was first established as TeliaSonera, as the result of a 2002 merger between the Swedish and Finnish telecommunications companies, Telia and Sonera. This merger followed three years after Telia's failed merger attempt with Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor, now its chief competitor in the Nordic countries.Before privatisation, Telia was a state telephone monopoly. Sonera, on the other hand, had a monopoly only on trunk network calls, while most of local telecommunication was provided by telephone cooperatives. The separate brands Telia and Sonera continued to be used in the Swedish and Finnish markets respectively until March 2017, when Sonera was rebranded to Telia. Of the stock, 39.5% is owned by the Swedish government, and the rest by institutions, companies, and private investors worldwide. The Finnish government divested from Telia Company in February 2018, when it sold its remaining 3.2% stake.
Telia
The Swedish Kungl. Telegrafverket 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, 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. In December 2018, Telia in cooperation with Ericsson launched Sweden's first 5G network at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Sonera
The history of Sonera dates back to 1917, when Suomen Lennätinlaitos 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, and Telecom Finland Oy. Telecom Finland changed its name to Sonera in 1998, and went on to merge with Telia in 2002, forming TeliaSonera.After the merger of Telia and Sonera
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. After the merger with Sonera, the Swedish State held 46% of the shares and with parliamentary approval the government sold down to 37.3%.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 2,900 redundancies: 2,000 from Sweden and 900 from Finland. France Télécom proposed a 33 billion euro acquisition offer for TeliaSonera on 5 June 2008, which was promptly rejected by the company's board.
Further divestment of TeliaSonera was presented to the parliament after the 2010 election, at which the Alliance lost its majority but stayed on as a minority administration.
On 12 April 2016, the company changed its name to Telia Company, dropping the Sonera part, rebranding the company to aid recovery after bribery and money laundering allegations.
On 20 July 2018, Telia Company announced the acquisition proposal of Bonnier Broadcasting Group from Bonnier Group for 9.2 billion SEK, thus owning TV4 AB, MTV Oy and C More Entertainment. The European Commission approved the deal on 12 November 2019 with certain conditions, and the acquisition was completed on 2 December that year.
Ahead of the completion of Bonnier Broadcasting deal, the Telia Company nomination committee proposed on 20 October 2019, that Marie Ehrling be succeeded by Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, the former CEO of Tele2 until 2008, and then-chair of Egmont Media, as the company's board chair. The proposal was approved on 26 November that year, following the extraordinary general meeting. Meanwhile, on 24 October, Telia Company appointed Allison Kirkby, the former CEO of Tele2 from 2015 until 2018 and then went on to become the president and CEO of TDC, as the company's new president and CEO. Kirkby assumed office on 4 May 2020.
On 6 October 2020, Telia Company agreed to sell its Internet backbone unit Telia Carrier to Polhem Infra for roughly US$1 billion. The sale was completed on 1 June 2021.
On 25 February 2025, Telia announced that it was selling its media division to in order to focus on its consumer division, the sale is scheduled to be completed by Q3 2025, pending regulatory approval.
Operations
Telia Company is the largest Nordic and Baltic fixed-voice, broadband, and mobile operator by revenue and customer base. It also owns a TV-media operation which includes TV4 in Sweden and MTV in Finland as well as C More.Telia mobile telephone business in Europe:
- Leader company - Sweden, Estonia and Lithuania
- Second company - Finland and Norway
Estonia
Finland
Telia Finland is the second largest mobile operator in Finland and also one of the biggest providers of landline telephone and internet services.Before the rebranding on 23 March 2017, Telia was known in Finland under the brands of Sonera and Tele Finland. In September 1999, Sonera became the world's first mobile operator to launch mobile Internet services via Wireless Application Protocol.
Since 2014, Telia Finland and DNA Oyj have jointly deployed a shared 4G LTE network using the 800 MHz "digital dividend" band in remote Northern and Eastern Finland under the Suomen Yhteisverkko Oy joint venture. Telia Finland owns 51% of Suomen Yhteisverkko Oy.
Latvia
Telia Company owns 49% of LMT and 49% of Tet, which owns 23% of LMT. Telia Latvija, a business cable operator and data centre operator, was sold to Tet.On July 15, 2025, Government of Latvia announced that they plan to buy out Telia Company's shares of both LMT and Tet with help from Latvenergo and Latvian State Radio and Television Centre, to make both companies state-owned. Telia confirmed the sale on July 17 by signing a memorandum of understanding with Latvia, Latvenergo and LVRTC, with the transaction expected to be completed in the first half of 2026.
Lithuania
TeliaSonera owns 88.15% of Telia Lietuva, 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.
On 1 February 2017, Omnitel and Teo merged under the name of "Telia Lietuva".
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.On 1 March 2016, NetCom changed its name to Telia Norge.
In July 2018, Telia acquired Get AS and TDC Norway for $2.6 billion.