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Good morning and welcome to Telenor's second quarter results presentation for 2026. With me here today I have our CEO Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer and our CFO Torbjorn Wist. Today's agenda follows our usual structure. Benedicte will start with the main developments in the quarter, including the Nordic markets, transformation, M&A and defence topics. And Torbjorn will then take you through the financials. As usual, all revenue and EBITDA growth, just as a reminder, in terms of rates, are organic and made on a constant currency basis. And EBITDA always refers to adjusted EBITDA. At the end of the presentation, we will open the nine for questions. And with that, Benedicte, over to you.

Thank you very much, Frank, and good morning, everyone. The results in the group's business units were mixed this quarter, with a more demanding mobile market in Norway, tough competition in Finland, but good financial progress in Sweden, Denmark and AMP. In AMP, the net asset value of the portfolio has grown to around NOK 15 billion, reflecting the new connection partnership and solid performance in KNL. The inflationary effects from the Iran war still weighs on Grameen's phone in Bangladesh. We have particularly tough year-on-year comparables due to the national roaming agreement, the timing and size of pricing adjustments, facing and step-up of robustification and transformation costs, And we faced a more promotional market in Norway this quarter, where we also needed to make a provision related to a dispute on VAT for TV news channels dating back to 2020 to 2022. In Q2, we report a decline in service revenues of 0.7% and a decline in EBITDA of 4.8%. However, underlying performance on a fully comparable basis was better, with 0.3% increase in service revenues and a 2.3% decrease in EBITDA. In Q2, we've taken active measures to build a stronger Nordic franchise going forward. We took multiple important steps to strengthen our Nordic market position, expanding our broadband footprint in Norway and becoming the number two fixed provider in Sweden. We announced a value unlocking partnership for Telenor Connection to scale growth within IoT. And we also were awarded important contracts within defense and mission critical communications. 2026 is a transition year for Telenor from several perspectives. And as you remember, we've just sold two of our Asian businesses and focusing more on the Nordics. We also advanced on our transformation agenda, which is set to bring substantial cost improvement in the years to come. However, due to the performance year to date, we are revising down our outlook for the year and we will elaborate on this later in the presentation. This said, our strategic direction and mid to long term financial ambitions remain unchanged. We are building a simpler, more Nordic centric and more profitable Telenor. Turning to the Nordics, as mentioned, performance was mixed across the markets this quarter. In Norway, we faced an exceptionally tough comparison with 16% EBITDA growth in Q2 last year. Reported results were also affected by the TVVAT provision and the business transfers we mentioned earlier this year. Excluding these effects, service revenues increased by 0.6% in Norway, while EBITDA declined by 2% due to timing effects on both revenues and OPEX, including transitional IT costs. In mobile, we grew well in B2B and also won a frame agreement with the armed forces that will add approximately 25,000 subscriptions during the year. In B2C, a quite promotional quarter and market put further pressure on our upper growth, although we saw some positive pricing trends in the market during June. Sweden added 36,000 new mobile customers and grew mobile service revenue by 3.1%. The fixed transformation continued and helped drive an EBITDA growth of 5.2%. Denmark sustained its commercial momentum and delivered service revenue growth of 3.5%. EBITDA improved substantially from the previous quarter in line with our expectations. In Finland, we saw modest improvement over the previous quarter with a low level of churn in B2C mobile. The recovery in new sales consumer APU was modest as earlier campaign pricing continues to affect the customer base. As APU for DNA's new sales did not improve much from March through June, we expect new sales APUs to still take a few months to potentially coming back to year-over-year growth. We also see a more competitive fixed market in Finland. Transformation Initiative supported good cost control and underlying EBITDA growth of 4.8%. Overall, the underlying development in the Nordics is more resilient than the reported figures suggest. But we also see that the competition has picked up in some of our markets compared to what we saw earlier this year. Let me briefly give you status on our transformation agenda. As mentioned at our CMD, 2026 is the peak transition year with significant activities across several programs driving an uptick in Nordic OPEX in the short term. We execute the transformation on a country by country basis and you see examples of this on the slide. We are also scaling pan-Nordic programs in selected areas like, for instance, shared services, common products, AI, procurement, and network and IT. In the near term, this means supporting dual IT cost structures and incurring implementations costs which will start rolling off from 2027. In May, we announced a new and simplified organizational structure with effect from mid-August, leading to a leaner operating model supporting our more focused portfolio. By removing the business area layer, we will be reducing costs, FTEs and complexity, and annual OPEC savings will be around 0.3 billion from 2027. Additionally, we have scaled down our offers in Singapore following the exit of True and Pakistan, with annual OPEC savings of 75 million already effective from this quarter. We are confident that these efforts will drive meaningful cost efficiency with average annual OPEX reductions in the Nordics 0-2% from 2025 to 2028, while increasing operational leverage and organisational speed. Let me now share a more concrete set of examples from Norway, where we see the greatest complexity and the most significant benefit from simplification. We have a strong and long track record of reducing costs in Norway. We currently have multiple large-scale transformation programs running in parallel across four key dimensions. Improving robustness, modernizing platforms, reducing systems and product complexity and digitizing remaining manual interfaces. And we are now carrying out the heavy lifting on IT migration, legacy platform exit, cloud transformation and robustification. And as you may understand, this temporarily increases our costs because parts of the old and new platforms run in parallel, in addition to implementation costs on top. But... From January 1st, we are set to exit one major legacy vendor platform and move workloads to public cloud. This alone would lead to 0.4 billion OPEX and CAPEX savings ramping up from next year. In addition, our private cloud initiative targets further savings of around 0.4 billion over the next four years. And these are just two examples of the large transformation program we have in Norway. In short, we are taking transition costs now and to build a stronger and more efficient platform for the years ahead. Our strategic momentum this quarter extended well beyond transformation. We started by unlocking value in Telenor Connection through a partnership that supports further scaling globally in IoT. The IoT transaction is strategically important and financially attractive and will release close to 4 billion in proceeds upon closing expected in Q3. We also made some important progress within broadband. In Norway, the Global Connect transaction was approved by the competition authority in Q2. And as a result of the announced broadband transactions, Telenor is set to become the number two broadband provider, both in Norway and Sweden, pending regulatory approval. The three broadband deals will add around 3.5 billion in revenues and are expected to generate around three quarters of a billion in annual synergies from 2030 and beyond. Together, these actions sharpen our portfolio, strengthen our Nordic central gravity and position Telenor for longer value creation over time. Let me spend a moment on the acquisition of Bahnhof in Sweden, which was announced just last week. This is a strategically important expansion for us in the largest Nordic market. The acquisition is set to make Telenor the second largest fixed telecom provider in Sweden, increasing our market share from around 15% to around 27%. Bahnhof is a service provider that brings half a million consumer fiber customers to our portfolio, a very strong B2B position, and a differentiated brand built on privacy, security, and technical expertise. The company also brings secure infrastructure capabilities, including military-grade data center assets, representing a strong fit with Telenor's focus on resilience and security. And the industrial logic is clear, strengthening our competitive position, enhancing cross-selling potential, and transforming the profitability of our combined fixed businesses. And this will create a foundation for renewed growth after a three-year period where we have peeled off layers of unprofitable fixed business due to suboptimal segment scale. Finally, let me also highlight our progress in defence and mission-critical communications. KNL is seeing substantial traction with its international expansion and has qualified for a framework agreement with the UK Defence on tactical communication. While the individual contracts have not been awarded yet, the opportunity is significant over time. K&L has also received pilot orders from another non-Nordic NATO country and has just been awarded a 6.5 million euro contract with the Finnish Defence Forces, the third so far. In Norway, Telenor has secured a four plus three year mobile agreement with the Norwegian Armed Forces with 750 million in estimated revenues over the contract period. For Telenor, these wins signal growing traction within secure and resilient communication, a key strategic focus area for us. And with that, I'll hand you over to Torbjorn for the financials.

Thank you, Benedicte, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with the group financial highlights for the quarter. The main financial message is that Q2 was affected by tough comps, timing effects and the TV VAT provision in Norway, combined with the soft home market. Group service revenues were 14.7 billion, corresponding to a decline of 0.7%. Adjusted EBITDA was around 8 billion, down 4.8%. Free cash flow before M&A was 1.8 billion, up 13% year on year, while adjusted EPS was 1.94 kroners, down 12% year over year. The CapEx to sales ratio was 14.5% and leverage ended at 1.4 times, still well below our target range. Rocky was negatively affected by the Celcom Digi impairment we booked in Q1, in addition to the softer operating profit this quarter. Rocky excluding associated companies was still a solid 12%. Now let me now walk you through the main drivers, starting with the top line. The service revenues for the group were in a soft patch this quarter. The organic decline was mainly driven by Nordics and Asia, partly offset by continued growth in AMP. In the Nordics, service revenues were affected by Norway, the VAT provision and timing of price migrations. In Asia, Gruminfond remained under pressure from lower voice and data revenues in a challenging macro and competitive environment. On an underlying comparable basis, group organic service revenue growth was slightly positive at 0.2%. Turning to OPEX, which grew 1.5% for the Nordics, while growth in AMP, as well as special projects on the HQ level, drove group OPEX growth to 2.6%. The increase was mainly related to transformation, robustification and M&A activity, as well as amortization of commission costs. Moving to EBITDA, the combination of the service revenue development and higher organic OPEX resulted in a 4.8% organic decline in adjusted EBITDA. However, the underlying decline is 2% when adjusting for VAT in Norway, the coastal radio transfer to the state and with like-for-like accounting in Finland. This is still an outlier quarter, reflecting several moving parts, tough comps, timing effects, transformation spend and the macro pressure in Bangladesh. There was also a negative contribution on the HQ level, reflected by the other an elimination column here. This was due to the cancellation of a procurement contract with True and higher spending on special projects this year. As a side note, we are adjusting the procurement organization as part of our reorganization to address lower income from Asia on the procurement side. Before I go into the Nordics overview, let me now zoom in on Norway, where these effects are particularly visible this quarter. On Norway, it is useful to take a step back and look at the development in more detail over a two-year period. Compared with Q2 2024, Norway has delivered 4.6% EBITDA CAGR on an underlying comparable basis even when excluding revenues from the national roaming agreement. In Q2 2025, growth in Norway was 16%. We were clear back then that this was exceptional on many levels. It was driven by commercial timing effects, new but temporary roaming revenues and supported by counter-seasonal swings on the COGS and OPEX lines. In Q2 this year, Norway's underlying adjusted EBITDA declined 2%. Thank you very much. Q2 26 in isolation is therefore not a clean quarter in terms of assessing the long-term earnings trajectory in Norway. Our focus is on driving commercial performance while progressing the transformation that will support a structurally lower cost base over time. For the Nordics overall, adjusted EBITDA declined 3.1% organically. Norway was the main negative contributor. Sweden contributed positively, supported by subscriber growth, fixed transformation and structural OPEX reductions. Denmark remained in the red on EBITDA due to amortization of commissions, but made a 12 percentage point uplift quarter on quarter as introductory campaigns rolled off. While the near term in Denmark will be challenged by an increase in OPEX, we do expect return to sound growth in the fourth quarter. DNA improved EBITDA as transformation initiatives offset higher sales costs. On an underlying comparable basis, Nordic adjusted EBITDA increased 0.6%. And again, the OPEX level is affected by the temporary IT transformation spend, which particularly weighs on Norway and Denmark for 2026, as well as the mentioned year-on-year timing and facing of both price changes and costs in Norway. Let me then move to Asia. In Bangladesh, Grameen Fund continues to operate in what can only be described as a difficult environment. Service revenues declined 3.2% as the inflationary effects due to the situation in the Gulf rippled through the economy, creating pressure on consumer wallets, further intensifying price competition on the data side. EBITDA declined by 6%. Still, commercial momentum improved sequentially with 3.5 million new data subscribers and overall 2.1 million new subscribers added. To support the voice-to-data transition that is taking place in the country, the 700 MHz low-band rollout has started. While this increases capex across Q2 and Q3, we continue to manage spending diligently and with tight focus on operational and capital efficiency. The timing and strength of any recovery remains uncertain and a risk given macro sensitivity and the wider regional situation. Let us then move to the P&L cash flow and leverage. The P&L is fairly clean this quarter apart from the mentioned VAT item, which is spread out across fixed service revenues, OPEX and a minor effect on financial items. Reported EBITDA was impacted by workforce reductions and restructuring-related costs of 337 million, which is higher than last year. You can expect more of this in coming quarters. Also, last year we recorded half a billion in M&A gains from the Jotter Cloud merger. Net financial items improved materially year on year, supported by higher financial income and items related to TRUE. In total, we generated 2.5 billion in net income to our shareholders. Turning to cash flow, free cash flow before M&A was 1.8 billion, an improvement of around 0.2 billion year over year despite lower EBITDA. The improvement was supported by lower net interest paid, dividends from associates and financial investments, and lower dividends to non-controlling interests. Working capital was a negative driver in the quarter, mainly due to timing effects year over year. Also, handset financing in previous periods was a headwind on this line. CapEx paid was around 2.3 billion and total free cash flow was 2 billion, including almost 200 million in M&A cash flow from a true deferred installment. Our balance sheet remains very strong. Net interest-bearing debt was 51.5 billion at the end of June, with leverage at 1.4 times. The increase in the quarter was mainly driven by the half-year dividend payment to our shareholders. Our three-year, 15 billion buyback program is now well underway. We bought back 2.9 million shares in the market for a total of 0.4 billion kroners during June. Our financial position gives room to sustain shareholder returns while also pursuing disciplined, value-accretive Nordic investments. Even following the recent M&A announcements, we still have significant financial flexibility for either acquisitions or additional shareholder returns. So with that... I don't know what got me here. So we're just having a little bit of a technical issue here. If you can give me the speaker notes. Thank you very much. Apologies for that. Now let me turn to the financial outlook. In light of the market developments and performance in Q2, we have updated our financial outlook for 2026. The revision is driven by a combination of technical and market related effects. Thank you for watching. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. However, transformation benefits will soon once again start to offset implementation costs becoming more visible from late Q4 and especially into 27 and 28. So with that, Benedicte, I will hand it back to you for the concluding remarks.

Thank you very much, Torbjorn. To sum up, Q2 was a bit softer financially, but it was also a quarter with clear strategic progress. We advanced heavy lifting on IT simplification, strengthened our Nordic broadband position, progressed in defence and continued to sharpen both the portfolio and the organisation. As Torbjorn said, we also remain financially strong with leverage well below our target range and the buyback program is well underway. As we move through this soft patch, our focus is firmly on execution. Improving commercial momentum, delivering transformation benefits and turning this year's strategic actions into stronger cash flow and returns over time. Our long-term ambitions remain unchanged, and we are confident in the direction we are taking. I now hand back to Frank to moderate the Q&A. Please, Frank.

Thank you, Benedicte. will now open the line for questions. And as usual, please limit yourself to one question each, plus a brief follow-up if needed, so that everyone gets an opportunity to participate. Operator, please go ahead.

Thank you. To ask a question, please click on the raise hand button on the bottom of your Zoom screen. When it is your turn, please accept the prompt that appears. This will allow you to turn on your video, unmute and ask your question. As a reminder, we are allowing analysts one question and one related follow up. Our first question comes from Andrew Lee with Goldman Sachs. Please turn on your video, unmute your line and ask your question.

Thank you and good morning everyone. I had a question clearly around the guidance cut today. The share prices are telling us all that investors have lost confidence in the structural growth outlook of some of the Nordic markets and also in execution. So I had a question around that hits on both those things. On the structural side, The concern in Norway is have we run out of road on the more for more growth and the value-added services? It's worked well for the last few years, but it's not working this year. Is that just poor execution or is there a structural problem of us running out of road there? And then also the execution side, the cost of transformation, Cost reduction is always a black box, but it's unprecedented the amount of EBITDA headwind that this IT stack transformation is generating to your business. Investors haven't seen that before across the sector. Could you just tell us what the total cost of the IT stack transformation is and what the anticipated boost to Nordic EBITDA is so people understand that better because it's confused a lot of people. Many thanks.

Thank you very much. Adjusting for the VAT effects and the business transfer, even with the different timing effects of price increases this year compared to last year. Thank you very much. We still have our more for more strategy. And on top of that, we have our services first layer on top. However, the services first products that we've launched, the first one in November of last year and the second now in March, have not picked up with the pace that we anticipated. But we are adjusting and fine tuning that and hope to to be able to prove that that also is a viable way forward for Telenor. And we continue, of course, with the more for more concept as well. On the transformation side, would you like to cover that, Torbjorn?

Sure. I think the way to think about the idea, we're not going to the specifics about the cost themselves, but clearly what is driving a lot of cost right now The number of IT people we have involved in, one, the system out in Norway that needs to be done by the end of this year, as well as the implementation of the BSS stack in Denmark. Those two things, in combination with running two systems in practice in parallel, brings additional costs. and of course when you look at the efficiency savings that will come on the back of that into next year and beyond, that is of course that those costs that we are now running to implement those systems will be taken out. The IT stack is not just important from a cost perspective, it is also an important part of our customer journey because the old, what I call technology debt systems often stand in the way of good customer journeys. And this is, of course, important for our customer experience to ensure that we have proper future-proof systems that will deliver a whole new level of customer service in the future.

I'll just add a teeny bit to that, which has to do with the paying off on robustification, which is one of the key elements of the transformation as well. And in light of the global context, if you could put it that way, one of the reasons for winning, for instance, the Norwegian defence contract is that we have stepped up on the robustification and resilience of our networks as well.

Thank you.

I might just add before you go to the next question, an element as to the aspect you raised, Andrew, on whether or not this type of development caused by the IT transformation in terms of the EBITDA growth which, by the way, on an underlying basis is down 2% year on year on a very tough comp, you know, is unprecedented. I think, you know, what is also unprecedented is what we're actually doing in terms of creating a cloud-native incumbent telco in Norway. I don't think many operators out there have been doing what we are doing now with a combination of... going to a public cloud and private sovereign cloud production stack for the IT part. So I think that's fair to add and that will bring significant benefits in the years ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Christopher Wang Bjornsson with DMB Carnegie. Please turn on your video, unmute your line and ask your question.

Good morning, can you hear me? Yeah, just some IT issues here this morning. I just wanted to follow up on the competitive dynamics. It seems like a theme across, like Andrew said, the different telcos in the region and your report is increased competition. And the commentary on the Tele2 call was also quite interesting. So could you maybe give some more color on what you're seeing across the different countries? Is this like a new norm of higher competition and what is driving that? And if not, what will change going forward? And then I have a follow up, please.

It's always difficult to kind of have forward-looking statements and particularly on markets and I guess that's what's hurting us a little bit also this quarter that we didn't see that a very good and stable three-player market actually turned more rotational in Norway with much more aggressive campaigning and But we saw some recent improvements towards the end of the quarter. So that's the story for Norway. In Sweden, it's a four-player market, as you know, and it's quite stable and seems to continue that way. In Denmark, which has been highly, maybe the most competitive market in Europe, We've seen an improvement in the way the pricing and the market is behaving. And then I guess in Finland, which has also been confirmed by some of the other market players, the price shock we got in Q4, which has, you know, remember you have a 12 month binding period for new customers. Take some time to recover, but it seems to be stabilizing and recovering from that price shock.

Thank you. And then my follow-up is more on the dividend and the Bible program. You're obviously making some big moves with Bonoff and other deals, and you're having these transitory headwinds to the cash flow and the earnings this year and next. Can you just help us understand how to think about Thank you very much. The short answer is no. We have a 16-year track record on paying dividends. So there's a strong fundamental commitment to the payment of dividends, both in the board and in the management. So the

Increasing dividends, not only dividends.

Increasing dividends, thank you, which has now been complemented by a share buyback program, which is well underway. And of course, the buyback program, A, it returns the capital to shareholders, but B, it also reduces a little bit the absolute amount of dividends that we pay out, which is important, given that we have sold off businesses, which of course, where the cash is no longer coming in. Then with the acquisitions we are making, this will of course add to the financial profile going forward. We think they are good acquisitions that will support our development in the years ahead. And then we always have good discussions with our own board on call it alternative uses of the financial strength we have. And that is something that you would have to wait for until we have that discussion with our board and communicate something. There's a strong commitment to compensating our shareholders in a good way.

And the flexibility, if anything, was more on the upside rather than downsizing the buyback program if you do these big deals.

As I said, now we have kicked off on the 15 billion program. Of course, in sizing up these things, one is, of course, returning a good amount of capital to the shareholders. Then that needs to be conducted in accordance with market regulations. But yes, there's always flexibility to add additional shareholder remuneration. But that's something that I'm not going to pre-flag here. That is something that we would have to communicate as and when we make a decision.

I think we need to move to the next question, which seems to be from Felix at Nordia.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Felix Henriksen from Nordia. Please turn on your video, unmute your line and ask your question.

Very good. Thanks for taking my question. I'll actually follow up on Christopher's question on capital allocation more broadly. I'd like to discuss about the financial and operational headroom that you still have left for larger, maybe mobile M&A, given that you've now announced three acquisitions on the fixed side of things. You have the buyback going, and it seems like the earning strengths are worsening, because obviously there's been speculation about mobile market consolidation in the Nordics, and historically it seems like you've been quite open to that. So just curious to hear your thoughts about your both financial headroom as well as operational capacity to do anything larger on top of what you've already announced. Thanks.

Yeah, I think we will not do anything that will not benefit our shareholders from a financial perspective in the areas of M&A. And I think the three or actually four proof points you have from this quarter is a testament to that. And that would also, of course, apply if we were to pursue any other consolidation efforts or acquisitions within our markets. And of course, as Torbjorn just said, answering Christopher's questions, we have a very strong balance sheet at the moment. We have initiated the share buyback program, which will take down the number of shares. and give higher returns per share. And if we cannot apply or invest in things that we think yields more to the investors, of course, we will suggest to our board that we, in some way or form, repatriate that to our shareholders if that occurs.

Okay, I hope that answers your question. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Nick Lyle with Berenberg. Please turn on your video and mute your line and ask your question.

Yeah, morning, guys. I hope you can hear me. It was to come back to Norway, please, if possible. You've mentioned competition in broadband, I think, in your comments, Benedicte. So would it be possible, there's loads of moving parts, obviously, in the Norwegian numbers this quarter, but could you tell us where we find it? If anything, in your KPIs, it looks like mobile is moving. So could you just help us and tell us exactly what the effects are on the numbers and what you've penciled into guidance? And then just a very quick sort of clarification on the last point. You didn't mention Cellcom Digi as a stake in the last point. Can you just remind us what the criteria are for you thinking about sale or keeping the asset, please? Thank you. Sure.

So, when it comes to the Norwegian market, what we saw in Q2, which of course you can think of also as a little bit of a bridge to the outlook for the year, is that we saw a lot stronger promotional development in B2C mobile in Norway. Thank you very much. Then, as Benedicte talked about, we had had a bit of a slower start to our value-added services. We had growth on the security products, but less so on the entertainment products. So we're now, of course, taking steps to recompose that package. Those were the main things that was affecting the performance in Norway. On the broadband side...

There is one more thing, which is the price adjustments that were a bit more staggered this year compared to last year. It comes in in different periods of the year, between quarters.

And on the broadband side, the main focus there has been to, we've taken a couple of steps now to strengthen our market position on the fixed side in Norway with the acquisition of Global Connect, which was recently approved, as well as the announced acquisition of AnyVest. And then, sorry, the second part of your question, Nick. Selkom Digi. What we have said is that long term, we see ourselves becoming more of a Nordic-centric group. And of course, with the acquisitions we make, we are Nordic. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ulrik Raate with Bernstein. Please turn on your video, unmute your line and ask your question.

Thanks very much. My video doesn't seem to work. I apologize for that. So I wanted to ask a little bit about this competition situation, particularly in mobile Norway. I mean, you're describing it very distantly, right, as an externality. You sort of say there is higher competition, but could you dig a little bit more into the dynamics of it. For example, it is imaginable that you have enabled eyes through the NRA to become the national roaming agreement to become more of a quality player. And they might sort of be emboldened to be more aggressive in the market. So in this sense, it's not simply an externality of other players. It's also Telenor's contribution to the situation. Or if that's not true, any other sort of underlying reasons for this flare up of competition that that you would see here.

Do you want to take that, Torbjorn? Yeah, I can start. I wouldn't sort of peg it on a particular operator, but there was some significant campaigning that was going on in Q2. We've had campaigning from all the MNOs. We've had campaigning from the MBNOs. So that... Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Some of our competitors has increased their price points. But Q2 will always be a very dynamic quarter on the competition front.

Thank you. Can I just clarify one thing? It's a very quick one on the clarification, Frank. Sorry about this. You seem to say during prepared remarks that the guidance actually excludes. So for the year, the comparison to guidance would exclude the TV competition. VAT issue, whereas in the organic growth rates, the VAT issue is included. Can you just confirm that and if it's true, explain why you would play it that way?

Yeah, well, we have had a caveat for some years now on issues or claims or other factors relating to prior periods activities, such as this TVVT, which was claimed from the tax authorities on 2020 to 2022. So that comes in that category where we basically have said that our guidance doesn't include that sort of... Thank you very much. But the first half year rates that you see on our outlook slide have been adjusted for the TVVAT so as to be consistent with the guidance which excludes the TVVAT, if that makes sense. Thank you, Frank.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Frederick Lithell with Handelsbanken. Please turn on your video and mute your line and ask your question.

Thank you. Thank you for taking my question as well. I had one on Sweden. The announced acquisition of Bahnhof, if you have any or regulatory approvals that is needed, is the first one. And then secondly, if you can come through with this acquisition, do you feel you have your base ready in Sweden or do you have white spots that will make you continue to look for M&As in Sweden on the fixed side as well? Thank you.

Yes, we do need regulatory approval from the competitive authorities which is put in motion but we hope to get an answer to that within third to fourth quarter sometime and as you may remember we are also at that point will make a mandatory offer for the remainder of the shares and And when it comes to, you know, are we satisfied with our base? I think I'll just answer that. But if we have financially viable opportunity that would kind of be incremental to our business, then we will look at it. And if not, we won't. We have a pretty good position now and improved with what we've done in Q2, crossing finger, but it goes through. and we'll continue to be open but not too eager if I can say it that way.

Okay and then maybe a quick follow-up on Sweden. You said Benedicte that Sweden is quite stable and hopefully it will continue that way. We just had a conference call with one of your competitors that said it has been a flare-up of competitions here late spring into the summer. Is that something you can confirm and how you sort of deal with that?

I think from our perspective, we've progressed quite well in the market. And our experience is that it has been a quite normalized market. And we've added, as I said, 36,000 new subscribers. We are pretty pleased with how we are progressing in Sweden at the moment.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from AJ Sony with JP Morgan. Please turn on your video, unmute your line and ask your question.

Hi guys, my question is just on Finland. So you mentioned inbound ARPUs have somewhat deteriorated during Q2. I suppose this is a slightly different message to what Alisa said yesterday, who had seen an improvement. So can we read this as Alisa are raising prices, creating a gap between themselves and the other operators? So do you see this or do you still see pricing as quite tight within the market?

We can speak for ourselves, but why don't you cover that, Frank?

I think it's difficult for us to talk about the differences between the individual players and gaps and the things you ask about from a price perspective. Those type of discussions... We don't do.

But I think what we what we what we can say, you know, focusing on ourself is that, you know, the we do see that the ARPU, because remember, it was a hyper competitive Q4 competition. We did see normalization of pricing as we moved into Q1. So keeping pricing aside, you still have the issue that in Finland people are signing up for 12-month contracts. You also have that additional thing that let's say if you're a subscriber with one operator and you have three months to go, you can then sign up for the promotional package in December and then that starts kicking in in sort of April time or whatever. So you do get this delay in the improvement of the ARPU curve. And what we did see was that, you know, there was some improvement in, you know, throughout Q1, but then that kind of tailed off. So you're going to have, you know, for the first, I would say, three quarters of this year, you're going to have An RP development, you know, which will take time to build itself up to where it were before. And I think that is one of the key things that has been topical for not just us.

And I think just to give a bit of a better answer to my previous one, AJ, on your question, I think in terms of the profile that you said that the inbound ARPUs seem to have deteriorated during Q2, which is a bit of a different message and so on, that's not quite precise. What we've said is that if you think about month-on-month inbound ARPUs deteriorating, Thank you very much. and actually rather with June being slightly lower. But pricing, remember there's a lag between the actual pricing in the market and what we're able to book in an individual month or quarter because of how the market works. So pricing is moving in the right direction.

But with a lag.

I think we need, if that's good, we have all the people in the queue, so I think we need to move on to the next one, please.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Keval Karoya with Deutsche Bank. Please turn on your video, unmute your line and ask your question.

Thank you for taking the questions. I think some of the promotional activity in Norway has been on the unlimited offers and not just the lower end options in mobile. Do you think there's been more competition on unlimited than usual? And how do you think about your price premium in Norwegian mobile for unlimited? Do you see it as sustainable? Or is the lesson here that maybe, you know, that level of price premium is a little bit more difficult to sustain? Thank you.

I think I'd like to start with the second half of your question, if that's all right, where we've built a unique coverage, a unique brand position, a unique resilience over time. And we are also expanding that with, you know. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

But you're right, I think the promotional activity in the market has lifted up from low to mid-end towards kind of the more unlimited bracket, which is a higher bracket in the consumer market. That's clear, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Abhilash Mahatra from BNP Paribas. Please turn on your video and mute your line and ask a question.

Hi there, good morning and thanks for taking my question. I'll ask one on Asia, please. So just on Bangladesh, obviously, you mentioned all of the sort of various macro headwinds, which make it difficult to have a lot of visibility on the pace of the recovery. Can you just explain to us what you're now making for Bangladesh during H2 in your revised guidance? I think previously you had said that you were resuming state. Thank you very much. Thank you. Shall I?

Yes, please. Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of the outlook for the year, and of course, Bangladesh, you know, is, you know, hits call it EBITDA in terms of, you know, when we look at the sort of group guidance. We do expect that it's still a formal normalization for the second half. You've got to keep in mind that I think management has done a very good job in terms of focusing on costs when the top line is challenged, and of course that's important in terms of confidence in the guiding. Look, we will follow the Gulf War. No off-ramp has been secured yet for the parties there. So, of course, if that situation deteriorates, it's difficult for me to sit here and be bombastic about what's going to happen in Bangladesh, which is dependent on energy imports from the Gulf. But again, management is definitely focusing on managing costs in order to protect cash also in a challenging situation. When it comes to the spectrum auctions, there is no news there. I will refer you to our website in terms of when these are up for renewal. We, of course, have our own dialogues with authorities there. But so far, no information has come out on the sort of nature, pricing, etc. of that spectrum renewal process.

But you're right, there are two spectrum auctions expected this year? Or that are running out this year?

Up to four bands, actually, depending on how we define them, which will come up for renewal. The format is still to be seen. There's nothing official on that. I think that concludes our call for this time, that's all we have time for and if you have additional questions please don't hesitate to reach out to IR and operator, I think that concludes our call.