By Dominic Chopping

Norwegian telecom provider Telenor ASA on Tuesday said it swung to a first-quarter net loss after fully impairing the value of its Myanmar operations following a military coup in the country earlier this year.

"Due to the worsening of economic and business environment outlook and a deteriorating security and human rights situation, we see limited prospects of improvement going forward," said Chief Executive Sigve Brekke.

"Based on this, we have fully impaired Telenor Myanmar with an amount of 6.5 billion Norwegian kroner [$784.9 million] in the quarter."

Telenor posted first-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of NOK13.02 billion, down from NOK14.11 billion a year earlier and just shy of the NOK13.1 billion expected in a FactSet poll.

The company swung to a net loss attributable to shareholders of NOK3.89 billion, from a profit of NOK698 million last year, as revenue fell 6.7% to NOK28.87 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet had expected net profit of NOK2.86 billion and revenue of NOK28.89 billion.

The first-quarter mobile subscription base grew by 5 million compared with the fourth quarter, to 186.8 million.

For 2021, Telenor still expects organic subscription and traffic revenues and Ebitda to remain around 2020 levels, with a capex-to-sales ratio of 15%-16%, excluding Myanmar.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-04-21 0150ET