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Telenor expands FTTP base with US$600 million GlobalConnect deal

Telenor is planning to splurge close to $600m on the acquisition of GlobalConnect’s consumer business in Norway as part of the incumbent’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its position on the “highly fragmented” local fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) market.

According to an announcement issued on Tuesday, the operator has agreed to buy its smaller competitor’s consumer operations for 6bn Norwegian kroner (NOK) ($595m), subject to approval from the Norwegian Competition Authority.

Telenor said the acquisition, which includes fibre infrastructure and about 140,000 fibre customers, represents a “key building block” in its long-term strategy. It is expected to“create synergies with existing operations” and build “long-term, robust scale across the core telecom market”.

The operator also noted that its market share of fibre subscriptions in Norway will therefore increase from 22% to 29% as a consequence of the transaction, based on 2024 data from the Norwegian Communications Authority (Nkom).

Notably, this should help redress the recent downward trend in Telenor’s fixed broadband subscriber base in Norway, which fell by 11,000 to 705,000 in the first quarter of 2025. This was mainly owing to 6,000 fewer HFC (hybrid fibre coaxial – cable broadband) subscriptions, but FTTP subs also fell by 2,000.

During the Q1 earnings call in May, Telenor CFO Torbjørn Wist conceded that it had been a “tough” start to the year, and indicated that Telenor would continue to invest “where we think it makes sense”. While Wist has stressed that the operator is “very mindful of avoiding a massive contribution to [an] overbuild of fibre infrastructure”, Telenor says scale is needed to “provide the sufficient level of robustness, operationally and financially” in what it sees as a fragmented market.

As for GlobalConnect, it plans to focus on its wholesale and B2B business in future. CEO Martin Lippert said B2B and carrier customers in Norway “remain a strategic focus and we will continue our investments in these areas”.

Telenor said GlobalConnect’s consumer portfolio generated revenues of more than NOK 600m ($59.5m) in 2024. Looking ahead, it expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of around NOK 300m ($29.7m) in each of the two first years of operations after integration and restructuring costs.

In addition, free cash flow from the deal should gradually ramp up to a run-rate of NOK 450m ($44.5m) before financing costs from 2028. Telenor estimates annual post-integration cost savings of about NOK 150m ($14.8m), and integration capital expenditure (capex) of approximately NOK 300m ($29.7m) , in the period from 2026 to 2028.

It is worth noting here that the Norwegian operator created the passive fibre unit Telenor Fiber in 2022 and sold a 30% stake in the business to investors KKR for around $1bn.

Fibre targets

Nkom’s 2024 figures show that Telenor Norway accounted for 27.9% of all private and business fixed broadband subscriptions, including fibre, HFC and other access technologies, down from 28.3% in the previous year. Partners of Altibox, a network operator collective, were able to increase their combined market share to 33.3%. Telia Norway was in third place with 16.9%, followed by GlobalConnect with 6.7%.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian government has set a goal of passing 100% of households with gigabit broadband services by 2030. In June, Nkom said 96.2 % of households already have access and estimated that it would cost NOK 12.4bn ($1.23bn) to provide coverage to the remaining 97,000 households – 65,000 of which are expected to require public support because they are situated in more challenging areas that are less commercially viable.

Nkom is also in the process of consulting on the deregulation of the broadband market to enhance competition and consumer choice.



Source: https://www.telecomtv.com/content/access-evolution/telenor-expands-fttp-base-with-600m-globalconnect-deal-53405/

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