Norway's biggest telecoms company has said its core earnings beat forecasts with a 36 per cent jump in the fourth quarter.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) at Telenor rose to 4.88 billion Norwegian crowns (€553 million) for October-December from 3.59 billion crowns in the same 2002 period.
The state-controlled company's EBITDA exceeded an average 4.7 billion crowns forecast in a Reuters poll of 12 analysts.
Telenor has stakes in about a dozen foreign mobile companies in Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe and has sought to diversify from the near-saturated Nordic market more actively than regional peers such as Swedish-Finnish firm TeliaSonera.