By Dominic Chopping

Norwegian telecom provider Telenor ASA on Thursday reported second-quarter adjusted Ebitda that beat estimates, but cautioned that subscriptions this year will be lower than 2019.

Telenor posted a second-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of 14.33 billion Norwegian kroner ($1.54 billion), up from NOK12.03 billion a year earlier. The adjusted Ebitda margin rose to 46.4% from 44.7%.

Net profit attributable to shareholders for the period rose to NOK4.43 billion from NOK2.86 billion last year, as a NOK1.2 billion provision was offset by asset sales and merger synergies.

Revenue rose 15% to NOK30.9 billion, driven by currency effects of NOK2.8 billion as well as the consolidation of the acquired DNA business.

Analysts polled by FactSet had expected adjusted Ebitda of NOK13.82 billion and revenue of NOK31.17 billion.

"As expected, lockdowns have affected prepaid markets in Asia and global roaming revenues negatively. Combined with a reduction in new sales, this led to a decline in organic subscription and traffic revenues of 4%, which was offset by an opex reduction of 12%," Chief Executive Sigve Brekke said.

"The financial results this quarter are positively impacted by the strong performance of our operations in Norway and Finland, while Bangladesh and Pakistan, as expected, remain the most challenged prepaid markets."

The second-quarter mobile subscription base decreased by 3.2 million from the first quarter to 182.4 million.

For 2020, Telenor expects a low single-digit decline in subscription and traffic revenues, stable organic Ebitda compared with 2019 and around 13% capex to sales. 



  Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com