Brief History of Telenor

Telegraph

Telenor started off in 1855 as a state-operated monopoly provider of telegraph services named
Telegrafverket. The first Norwegian planning for a telegraph were launched within the Royal
Norwegian Navy in 1848, but by 1852, the plans were public and the Parliament of Norway
decided on a plan for constructing a telegraph system throughout the country. Televerket began
by connecting Christiania (now Oslo) to Sweden (Norway was at that time in a union with
Sweden) as well as Christiania and Drammen. By 1857 the telegraph had reached Bergen on the
west coast via Sorlandet on the south coast, and by 1871 it had reached Kirkenes on the far north
coast. Cable connections were opened to Denmark in 1867 and to Great Britain in 1869. The
telegraph was most important for the merchant marine who now could use the electric telegraph
to instantly communicate between different locations, and get a whole new advantage from better
logistics.

Telephone

The first telephone service in Norway was offered in 1878 between Arendal and Tvedestrand,
while the first international telephone service between Christiania and Stockholm was offered in
1893. Automation of the telephone system was started in 1920 and completed in 1985. In 1946
the first Telex service was offered, and in 1976 satellite telephone connections to the Norwegian
merchant navy, at the time the largest in the world and to oil platforms in the North Sea were
made operational. This is the start of Inmarsat Satellite Communication, and formed the first
steps to digitalise the telephone network in 1980 – 85.

Televerket opened its first manual mobile telephone system in 1966, being replaced with the
automatic NMT system in 1981 and the enhanced NMT-900 in 1986. Norway was the first
country in to get an automatic mobile telephone system. The digital GSM system came into use
in 1993. The third generation of mobile technology with UMTS system began full operation
2004. The Opera web browser was created in 1994 by Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir
Ivarsoy during their tenure at Telenor, and Opera Software was established in 1995 when they
went on to continue development of their browser.Telenor and Huawei conducted a successful
test of 5G with 70 Gbit/s Speeds in Lab environment.

Deregulation and internationalization

The corporation changed its name to Televerket in 1969. In 1994, then the Norwegian Telecom
was established as a public corporation. The telecom sector in Norway, was deregulated in stages
between 1994 and 1998. An attempt to merge Telenor with its counterpart in Sweden, Telia,
failed in 1999, while both still were owned by their respective governments. On December 4,
2000 the company was partially privatised and listed on Oslo Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.
The privatisation gave the company NOK 15,6 billion in new capital, with the Government of
Norway owning 77.7% of the company. As of 2014, the Norwegian government holds 53.97% of
the Telenor shares directly and another 4.66% through the Pension Fund.

In the second half of the 1990s, Telenor began mobile operations in other countries: Russia
(1994), Bangladesh, Greece, Ireland, Germany and Austria (1997), Ukraine (1998), Malaysia
(1999), Denmark and Thailand (2000), Hungary (2002), Montenegro (2004), Pakistan (2004),
Slovakia, Czech Republic, Serbia (2006), Myanmar (2014). Operations in Greece, Ireland and
Germany were sold in 1999/2000 and profits were re-invested in emerging markets. In October
2005 Telenor acquired Vodafone Sweden, changing the name to Telenor in April 2006.

Grameenphone was the first Telenor venture in the Asian telecom market and is now the largest
mobile operator in Bangladesh Telenor holds 55.8 per cent of Grameenphone. Grameenphone
started trading its shares on the stock exchanges in Dhaka and Chittagong on November 16,
2009. The success of Grammeenphone lead to an increased focus on Asia, with successful entries
into Malaysia, Thailand Pakistan, and Myanmar. Telenor also entered India, but had to withdraw
from that market in 2017 with substantial losses.

In March 2018, Telenor sold its business in Southeast Europe (Bulgaria, Hungary, Montenegro
and Serbia) to the PPF Group, for a sum of 2.8 billion euros in order to focus more on Asia and
the Nordic market.

In 2019 Telenor bought DNA, the third largest mobile operator in Finland.

Broadcast
Telenor's wholly owned subsidiary Canal Digital is a leading TV content distributor in the
Nordic region with about 2.7 million customers in 2011.

Telenor also operates the national terrestrial broadcast network in Norway, through its subsidiary
Norkring.

Thor is a family of satellites owned by Telenor. On 11 February 2008 the THOR 5 satellite was
launched into geostationary orbit. The launch was provided by International Launch Services
using a Proton-M launch vehicle built by Khrunichev Space Center. Telenor operates three
satellites from its satellite control centre at Fornebu (THOR5, THOR6 & THOR7)

Telenor Research
Telenor Research is Telenor's corporate unit for research. The unit conducts research and
delivers research based advice on topics such as market, technology, data analytics, innovation
and organization. Telenor Research provides research based analysis and strategic
recommendations to the Telenor Group, as well as to the individual Business Units across
Telenor markets. Telenor Research's mission is to create business value for Telenor through
applied research.

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Machine-to-machine

Telenor started exploring the M2M potentials in 2000, when Telenor R&D established a project
both aimed at technology, services and business models. This was further spurred when Telenor
acquired the Swedish mobile company Europolitan, which contained parts of Vodafone's
research capabilities in the area. As a result, two separate companies have been established:
Telenor Connexion in Stockholm, Sweden (aiming higher up in the M2M value chain), and
Telenor Objects (aiming further down in the value chain). The initiative has resulted in a
substantial market share of Europe's fast-growing M2M market and is being used by Nissan in
Europe to connect its customers Electric Cars.

Current Operations countries

Telenor is committed to responsible business conduct and driven by the ambition of empowering
societies. Connectivity has been Telenor’s domain for more than 160 years, and their purpose is
to connect their customers to what matters most. Telenor is listed at Oslo Stock Exchange under
the ticker TEL.

Telenor offers a full range of telecommunication services in the Nordic Countries, including
mobile and fixed telephony, Internet access and as well as cable TV access and content. Telenor
still remains the largest actor in Norway despite competition from Telia and others.

The group holds a prominent position in the Scandinavian Broadband and TV market, both with
regard to the number of subscribers and to the extent of coverage. The TV distribution is branded
Canal Digital. Telenor is also a prominent actor in Asia with operations in five different Asian
countries.

At year-end 2019, Telenor held controlling interests in mobile operations in 9 countries -

Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan.

Ownership 2019 revenue

Country Operator Native name Website
stake (million NOK)
Telenor
 Norway Telenor telenor.no 100% 28 658
Norway
Telenor
 Denmark Telenor telenor.dk 100% 4 871
Denmark
 Finland DNA DNA dna.fi 100% 3 433
 Sweden Telenor Sverige Telenor telenor.se 100% 12 857
 Bangladesh Grameenphone গ্রামীণফোন grameenphone.com 55.8% 14 980

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 Ownership 2019 revenue
Country Operator Native name Website
stake (million NOK)
 Malaysia DiGi digi digi.com.my 49% 13 572
Telenor တယ်လီနော
 Myanmar telenor.com.mm 100% 5 759
Myanmar မြန်မာ

Telenor
 Pakistan ‫ٹیلی نار‬ telenor.com.pk 100% 6 033
Pakistan
 Thailand dtac ดีแทค dtac.co.th 42.61% 22 994

Telenor Maritime Radio is responsible for the infrastructure for maritime radio communication
in Norway, and also includes five manned coast radio stations whose primary purpose is to
monitor the maritime radio traffic (over e.g. VHF and MF bands) and to assist marine vessels in
distress.

Former Operations
Telenor has sold a number of divisions after its privatisation, including Bravida, the former
installation division and Findexa, now part of Eniro that is responsible for telephone directories.
The browser vendor Opera Software originated in Telenor's R&D department.[16] Telenor
formerly provided a range of services related to satellite communication, including voice,

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television and data before its Telenor Satellite Services division was purchased by Vizada in
2007.

Telenor has also previously been active in a number of international markets as a mobile phone
network operator:

Country Year of Entry Year of Exit

 Russia 1994 2019
 Greece 1997 1999
 Ireland 1997 1999
 Germany 1997 2000
 Austria 1997 2007
 Ukraine 1998 2019
 Slovakia 1998 2005
 Czech Republic 1998 2005
 Serbia 2006 2018
 Hungary 2002 2018
 Montenegro 2004 2018
 Bulgaria 2013 2018
 India 2009 2017

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