Growth in Eurasia helped TeliaSonera register an overall rise in revenues during the first half of 2012.

The Sweden-based operator saw revenues increase two percent year-on-year to €6.1 billion.

Sales in nine countries from Moldova to Nepal (pictured) grew 19 percent in Q2 and 17 percent in H1 2012 y-o-y to reach €1.1 billion by the end of June.

“It is satisfying to see that our growth engine Eurasia continues to deliver double-digit growth and that all countries are contributing,” said president and CEO Lars Nyberg.

Demonstrating the importance of emerging markets to the company, this business unit now accounts for 18 percent of the operator’s total revenue, up from 16.5 percent and 15.4 percent in 2011 and 2010 respectively.

Sales of mobile services and broadband remained flat.

A 22nd consecutive quarter of growth in Sweden helped the company’s mobile business unit register H1 sales of €2.9 billion.

Surprisingly, sales in Spain were also up, despite the country’s economic troubles.

However, sales in each of the six other mobile markets in which it operates declined and Q2 revenues declined two percent y-o-y.

In broadband services, revenues remained flat at €2.1 billion.

But perhaps the most interesting news was that revenues from IP exceeded those of fixed line for the first time.

Twenty three percent of the company’s broadband subscribers are now connected with fibre access.

“We see a continued strong demand for our fibre offerings, as four out of ten households in Sweden being offered our services sign up for them,” said Nyberg.

TeliaSonera now has 2.5 million broadband subscribers and 1.2 million Pay-TV subscribers.

The CEO said this showed how customer behaviour is changing rapidly.

“This requires that operators change their business models from being voice to data centric, where new ways of packaging offers and charging customers based on data usage rather than voice minutes are being introduced.

“TeliaSonera will be a leader in creating offers based on data that are attractive to customers, while providing the revenues needed for future, mainly data driven, investments,” he said.

Earlier this year, the company predicted that smartphone users will use 3GB of data every month.

The elephant in the room remains a lack of profit.

Net income fell 10 percent y-o-y during H1 to €1 billion; this follows an 11 percent fall in profits during 2011.

This is despite a €350 million uplift from the reduction of its stake in Russia-based mobile outfit MegaFon.

The company’s free cash flow did receive a boost from the same deal, however, benefitting to the tune of a €1.4 billion dividend.

Short-terms problems continue to hamper the company, with the CEO forced to dampen full-year expectations.

“Based on the results for the first six months, we revise our outlook for 2012 and expect revenues in local currencies to be more or less unchanged and the EBITDA margin to be slightly lower compared to last year,” said Nyberg.

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