Good morning, everyone. I'm Frank Maaø, Head of Investor Relations, and welcome to Telenor's Capital Markets Day. Today, you'll hear from a strong lineup of executives and topic matter experts as we outline our strategy and ambitions for the years ahead. After lunch, our physical audience here at Fornebu may join our breakout sessions for deeper dives with managers and specialists. Online participants will have access to session videos later today. There will be two Q&A sessions today. The first on strategy and transformation and our Nordic businesses. The second one on Asia and financials. Please save questions about the other business areas and financial ambitions for the second Q&A. Now, please welcome our Group CEO on stage, Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer.
Thank you, Frank, and hello, everyone. Today, I'll focus on three things: how we will sustain and drive growth by delivering outstanding connectivity and great services to our customers; how we will build a stronger Telenor as digital infrastructure becomes ever more important; how we will drive increasing return on capital and long-term value creation for our shareholders. We are starting from a position of strength. We serve close to 210 million people through our total footprint, in addition to connecting more than 27 million IoT units. In the Nordics, we are the telecom operator with the largest footprint, with strong operations in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. In Asia, we have three leading market positions through our majority-owned telco in Bangladesh and our two associated companies in Thailand and Malaysia.
We are, as we speak, in the process of exiting Pakistan, and we expect that deal to close within the coming months. The Nordics is our core region, and over the years, it has consistently proven to be one of the most attractive and successful environments for telecom business in Europe. Some of the drivers for that are advanced economies, broad affordability, digital advanced customers, stable regulatory environment, and also, actually, a very digitalized public sector. This makes it a prime region for profitable growth. Given the increasing importance of our industry and our strong base in the attractive Nordic region, how do we ensure that investing in Telenor continues to pay off for our shareholders? We continue to operate across four business areas, and where the largest one in financial terms is Telenor Nordics, leveraging on truly world-class networks, service innovation, and continuous transformation.
Asia is a portfolio of positions in, as I just mentioned, three listed market leaders, and our agenda is to unlock further shareholder value through being an active owner and pursue potential structural opportunities. Telenor Infrastructure is the leading provider of tower infrastructure in the Nordics. Lastly, we have Telenor AMP, where we nurture innovation and growth in close-to-core services such as IoT and security, and with a develop or divest approach. At our previous Capital Markets Day, we set out some ambitions for these areas. Through the presentation today, we will score ourselves and review how we have delivered against those commitments, along with our plans how to take it forward. Let me start with reviewing our group and ambitions from back then.
Our commitments were growing dividend per share, covering these dividends with free cash flow before M&A by this year, and staying within our target leverage range. I'm really proud to say that we have delivered on those goals, despite deconsolidation of assets, merger integration costs in Asia, peak investments, and unfavorable currency movements. When I joined Telenor close to a year ago, the company had been simplifying for a decade. We have sunset legacy technologies such as the copper network. We've made several exits, and we have a successful entry to Finland and DNA. We have executed two mega-mergers in Asia, and we've managed a very difficult exit from Myanmar. Three years ago, we presented a reshaped Telenor at the CMD. Whilst we have taken lots of steps in order to future-proof Telenor, we still see significant room for improvement.
Now, as we are entering a new phase, we are building an even more future-fit, easy-to-understand, and profitable company as we approach the end of this decade. Going forward, we will grow our top line through services-led growth and customer excellence. We will drive transformation by building a future-ready, fully cloud-based, and increasingly AI-driven technology stack. That will lead us to tapering both OpEx and take down the capital intensity, particularly in the Nordics. Of course, we will have a relentless focus on return on capital and shareholder value creation. Since joining, I've focused and communicated very strongly that we have to put our customer needs at the center of everything we do. We think that there is room to utilize our strategic assets to an even greater extent.
We will do that by integrating more into the great Telenor execution culture, which you can touch and feel as you're here within these walls, to attract and to develop amazing talent and people through our organization. With that, with our talent culture, our trusted networks, and growing partner ecosystem, we are building a stronger company by 2030. Let me elaborate on our key priorities. First, we will drive customer excellence through embracing the customer mindset in our culture even more than we perhaps do today. We will make sure that to become a Telenor customer is a smooth process and that to stay a Telenor customer is actually a given. That will happen thanks to great service and quality solutions. We will take our successful more-for-more upselling approach to the next level by something we call services-first concept, starting in Norway.
You will hear more about that later today. We have a solid track record in service innovation, which is based on joint efforts from our people, partners, and technology, including AI. We will scale AI-powered customer interactions to deliver smarter, more targeted, and improved services. You will also hear more details about that later. Lastly, we will also deliver differentiated connectivity and services to meet customer needs, particularly in the B2B segment, powered by end-to-end 5G. A key element in our continuous transformation is simplification. That is a cornerstone in our second element, the technology-led transformation. We aim to transform our technology stack to be fully cloud-based and work systematically to become an AI-powered organization. This will form the basis for a more effective and efficient platform, which is key for creation and delivery of services in order to cater for evolving customer needs.
I'll cover that in a little bit more detail very shortly. Thirdly, the path to Telenor 2030 requires continuous streamlining of our cost base and leveraging our already upgraded world-class networks as that is actually the basis for expecting our OpEx and capital intensity to taper, particularly in the Nordics. Lastly, all this is set to drive shareholder value, and we will, of course, scrutinize all levers for meaningful expansion on our return on capital. This also includes our aim to simplify our portfolio of group assets also over time. Now, let's look at how we will execute on these priorities across our business areas. Again, you'll have more details on these topics later today. Telenor Nordics will drive growth through enhancing customer experiences and service value.
We will transform and simplify our operations while extracting synergies across Nordics and making sure that we are close to our customers in all our local markets. This summer, we announced the acquisition of GlobalConnect's Norwegian consumer fiber business. That highlights our approach to work selectively with attractive structural moves in order to further strengthen our position. In Asia, we will manage our leading telco assets for long-term value, working closely with our partners. We believe there is significant room for transformation-driven improvements in Asia, similar to what we have actually executed with great success here in the Nordics. At the same time, we continue to look for structural value creation opportunities for these leading telco assets, aiming for simplification of our group portfolio to become more of a Nordic-centric group over the medium to long term.
The focus for Telenor Infrastructure is to drive operational excellence in how we run and develop our infra assets. They also may grow through partnerships where appropriate. Telenor AMP have ambitions to develop positions, particularly in IoT and cybersecurity-related businesses, and also leveraging partnerships where appropriate. That will be on top of our strategy to develop and divest assets as and when we see fit. Our networks are our key strategic assets. Over the years, we've actually built some of the world's best mobile networks, covering nearly every person and almost all land in the Nordics, from very dense cities to remote forests and even polar regions. This reach is not only impressive, it's actually critical and essential for us and our customers' daily lives and for the societies we serve.
Next year, we will gradually launch 5G Standalone across the Nordics, and we are now focusing on software enablement and end-to-end 5G over the long term. I think you have to excuse me for just one moment. Technology is at the core of everything we do. Our goal is to become an AI-powered telco with smarter networks that monitor and improve themselves, aiming to enhance the return on our network investments. Second, becoming cloud-driven or truly cloud-driven is essential for resilience, for speed, and for innovation. We are tackling this head-on. We already have moved over 60% of our IT workloads to cloud-based platforms. Our ambition is to become practically cloud-native, which will, again, unlock simplicity, speed, resilience, scalability, and all the good things, including faster innovation. AI is top of mind in all our strategic areas.
As mentioned earlier, we will scale AI-powered customer interactions to deliver smarter, more targeted, improved services. On this note, we have actually now launched a global program within Telenor called AI and I as the umbrella for all our learning and testing activities across Telenor. Our approach to AI is deliberate, and it is focused. We are not there to win the AI race by developing the next language model, but to be brilliant at using AI where it actually truly matters. We have defined three core areas for us in that regard: smarter customer experiences, smarter, more resilient networks, and smarter tools for us Telenorians to build AI competence. I can tell you, this actually energizes our teams as well as myself and will position us to lead in a rapidly changing digital world.
Let's zoom out a little bit and take a look at the bigger picture. Because our infrastructure and services represent more than ever the critical infrastructure for society. Geopolitical shifts and competition are raising the bar for high performance and giving new demands on reliable and secure connectivity. At the same time, I guess we all see new risks, like undersea cable attacks, drone intrusion, cyberattacks, extreme weather, and all of these types of incidents we've seen just over the last few weeks and months. Our response to this is to build even more resilience, remove legacy, and co-develop security services. Because we also do see that these challenges also create some quite interesting opportunities. We have good traction on our commercial success in integrating security into our connectivity offerings. We do see a potential or a strong potential in providing business-critical and mission-critical services.
It is increasingly important with national champions to deliver sovereign solutions that actually safeguard sovereign national and customer interests. As we deliver safe connectivity, we also have a responsibility to make sure that we support the green transition and promote digital well-being and inclusion. Building a business that is sustainable for the long run is at the heart of our strategy. In our view, sustainable business is good business. This is not about politics. It is what is good for our customers, what is actually expected from us, from society, and what builds long-term value for our shareholders. For example, increasingly adverse weather conditions are a threat to our infrastructure. Today, we set new and quite ambitious targets midterm within the areas of climate, social responsibility, and governance. We are working to improve our energy efficiency of our network, making us more cost-effective and climate-friendly.
We are also working with our supply chain to secure that they also have high ESG standards. We work consistently to have a broad access to a broad and interesting, sorry, talent base. That is actually the key driver for us and for our policy to promote diversity in our workforce. We also work to improve digital well-being. To us, building a sustainable business is building a good and long-term viable business. All in all, we have a robust strategy to develop our strategic assets and operations, all aimed at driving returns and long-term value. Our engine for value creation is a propeller with three blades, and I hope you recognize it. First, it is based on top-line growth in both connectivity and value-added services through customer excellence, enabled by our world-class networks, our great people and talents, and technology.
Second, we pursue simplification and transformation for operational excellence by use of technology. By streamlining our operations, we not only improve customer outcomes further, but we also drive efficiencies, both operating and capital expenditures. Finally, we have a capital allocation process with targeted and return-guided reinvestments, further enhancing our networks, our IT stack, and improving and empowering our talent pool. We believe this brings us momentum facing forward. Together, these are the levers that power our earnings and cash flow growth, expand our return on capital, and, of course, support continued growth in shareholder return over time. Today, we will also share with you our financial ambitions for the rest of this decade. This slide shows some snips of the slides that Torbjørn will actually elaborate on a little bit later.
Overall, we have solid traction in the Nordics, and we're a sigma that will talk about how we look to triple our cash flow to 2030 from our 2022 baseline. In Asia, we've gone from a portfolio of companies with operating control to owning one majority and two minority stakes in leading telcos within their respective markets. We believe there is further potential to create shareholder value in Asia through our active ownership approach, which Jon Omund will talk to a little bit later. For the first time, we include return on capital, Torbjørn's and my darling, and it's consistent with as one of our parameters in our financial ambitions. This is consistent with the strategy that I just outlined. You will also notice that we add a long horizon view, also in line with our strategy to develop the company for the long term.
Our free cash flow ambitions for the coming years are based on cash flow from operating company, thus excluding the dividends from our associated companies. Our confidence in the long-term dividend capacity in these companies, mainly True and CelcomDigi in Asia, remains strong. However, we want to limit the presentation of our ambitions to entities that we control. Taking into account that our two Asian non-controlled entities are listed separately and under strict stock exchange regulations in their respective markets. Most importantly, we have a strong commitment to our financial policy for the group. We aim to grow dividends per share every year and to stay within our target leverage range. I may add that we have now 15 years' track record in growing our dividends and are strongly committed to cover dividends with free cash flow before M&A over time.
With that, I'll hand you over to Torbjørn, who will take you through how we work systematically with operational excellence and simplification. Off you go, Torbjørn.
Thank you, Benedicte, and good morning to everyone. Great to see you here in our headquarters at Fornebu. Before we dive into the business areas and then finally what I consider the juicy bit, the financial section, I would like to take some time to talk about how we drive operational excellence and change here at Telenor. We have a long track record for continuous change within the group. However, deep and continuous change is more than just about financial performance. For us, this starts with how can we ensure that the customers are a little bit happier every day, every month compared to the customers of our competitors, and how can we run our business more efficiently?
To ensure this, we have multiple transformation agendas across the group to ensure operational excellence and strong customer outcomes. We make sure we have a decentralized commercial decision-making in business units, which are the closest to our customers. Therefore, we have transformation and change agendas for practically every business unit's local needs. On the business area level, our biggest effort is the Nordic transformation program that Sigvart, our Head of Nordics, will talk more about later. Finally, on the group level, we are driving group-wide change through procurement, effective capital allocation and M&A, talent rotation, and people development, and of course, technology. Let me start with the technology topic, which is at the core of everything we do in Telenor.
As Benedicte laid out in brief, there are four key elements in our group tech agenda: making our already world-class networks smarter, simplification through migration to the cloud native, continuously enhancing customer experience through a platform that fosters faster service innovation, and finally, accelerating end-to-end impact through AI. These should all be considered key enablers to deliver world-leading user experience to our customers and to fortify our security and resilience foundation. Now, we are well-positioned to monetize the user experience into sustainable growth and financial returns while also driving operational efficiency. I will now take you through a couple of these areas. The first area is smarter networks. While our network quality and performance are generally second to none, we still have a way to go when it comes to running these networks with a greater degree of automation.
Today, our network operations feature a fairly good degree of basic automation of manual tasks. By bringing intelligence to the networks with data and AI over the next years, we will move from more task-based automation to networks being gradually more self-managed and self-optimized. Supervised by our experts, the networks will themselves find and fix problems and make necessary optimization to fulfill the expectations our customers have of their network experience. The left-hand side here on the chart behind me shows how we are measuring and driving automation from a basic to a far more advanced level using the TM Forum Framework. Now, we have an ambition to make a major leap in one particular city first with high level of network intelligence implemented by 2027, shown as level four on the chart, and in parallel, scale out the learnings across all our networks over the following years.
By bringing intelligence into our networks, we will be addressing up to 50% of network operations costs to provide significant efficiencies with potential to optimize 20%-30% of network processes and to improve process quality and accuracy, for instance, by resolving network issues 90% faster, reducing the time needed to resolve faults in the network from hours to minutes. The result is more consistent performance for the customer and more efficient operations within the group. Second, we also need to simplify IT operations and remove legacy complexity. Smarter networks alone will not deliver full operational excellence. Our main vehicle for simplifying our IT stack and making sure it is more future-fit is to move all relevant systems to cloud-native technology.
By driving simplification through the cloud, we are enabling a business transformation that will further enhance the customer experience through improved customer journeys, faster and more dynamic launch of improvement, as well as new services. That ultimately ends up in more cost-efficient processes overall. Now, let me take you through some of the examples of our midterm IT aspirations. We are already on a good path with more than 60% of IT systems now being cloud native, and we aim for more than 80% by 2028, with all relevant systems being cloud native by 2030. On this slide, we will show a few examples from across the organization of the savings we think this will bring. As for Norway, please do check out our separate breakout session on the Norway IT transformation later today. We think they're doing a great job in terms of managing this agenda.
Now, the final element in our group tech agenda is becoming an AI-powered telco. We focus on high-impact use cases, which is why AI is now a key driver of simplification and operational excellence across Telenor. We will digitalize manual tasks, automate the repetitive, and empower our people with AI, which frees up capacity for innovation. Now, our focus is on three domains where AI delivers impact at scale: for the customer, in networks and IT, and for our employees. Now, let me show you some examples. First, in Grameenphone, we use AI to deliver relevant and real-time personalized app interactions to a small but increasing part of Grameenphone's 85 million customers. By connecting data across segments, products, touchpoints, and geographies, we predict the next best action uniquely tailored to each user.
Now, our goal in Grameenphone is to scale this and have 80% of all customer interactions through the MyGP app with a high degree of AI-driven personalization. By doing so, we will drive both sales and customer retention. The second example is an intelligent voice agent that handles calls effectively and efficiently from start to finish using speech recognition and natural language understanding. We are currently testing this in Finland, and so far, we think this looks very promising, and we expect significant adoption within 6-12 months. The third example is from the technology domain. We are constantly softwarizing our business to serve our B2B and B2C customers better, and increasingly, our code is written and maintained by deploying AI agents through the entire product lifecycle. This initiative is designed to accelerate delivery, reduce manual effort, and improve system reliability.
Beyond tech and IT, we are also driving operational efficiency across the organization, including in how we run procurement. Now, procurement is a strategic enabler for us. By centralizing the procurement capabilities across Telenor, we have unlocked group-wide scale, securing better pricing and terms that reduce costs and improve quality. Now, this translates into more reliable networks, better access to new technologies, and better services for our customers. Green sourcing and ethical supply chains also support our sustainability ambitions. Today, two-thirds of our spend is with suppliers that have science-based targets. This is a milestone for us that has been very much driven through our procurement effort. In 2022, we set a target to increase globally managed spend by 50%, and we achieved this by expanding procurement as a service to both Telenor as well as our associates, True and CelcomDigi.
Now, we believe more can be done to centralize and coordinate procurement, and this effort will now be expanded with particular focus on category spend in the Nordics. We recently announced, as you may have seen, a strategic procurement partnership with Vodafone. Through this partnership, we can leverage combined annual spend of some NOK 300 billion. Telenor's procurement effort manages around NOK 50 billion annually. Through the Vodafone partnership, we believe we can realize additional savings in the mid-single digits over the medium to long term. In addition, we should be able to leverage the volume we manage on behalf of our associated companies to drive savings there as well. In the Nordics, we have a long track record working with operational excellence and workforce optimization. Our transformation programs have resulted in structural efficiencies.
Consistent workforce reductions have been a part of these efforts, averaging 4% for many years. We expect this to continue at a similar level going forward. This has contributed to keeping OpEx growth significantly below inflation in our markets. Now, looking into the medium to long term, we see a long runway of continued improvements from our transformation and simplification agenda. As a result, we aim for flat to negative 2% yearly development in nominal OpEx in the Nordics over time and a reduction in OpEx to sales from around 29% in 2025 to around 27% by 2028. It is worth noting that we drive the same efficiency agenda in our Asian assets as well in the forces where we participate. Going forward, we see increased capital efficiency in our core markets.
We have come out of a period of substantial investments in our 5G and fiber access networks across the Nordics. Now, we see, of course, a lot of attention on future innovation and technologies like AI -RAN and even 6G. Now, we, of course, will always applaud the focus on innovation, but we will take a prudent approach and monitor the development in these areas as it matures. Our anticipation is that software will be the key driver in the upcoming network technologies. All investments we do at scale will always be based on clear demand visibility as well as a return on capital focus. Now, our focus now is to monetize the large investments we have made into 5G. And we see that this infrastructure has a long runway of capabilities for new services and features which can be introduced in the years ahead.
In the Nordics, CapEx intensity has declined from 19% in 2022 to around 14% this year after a significant step down so far in 2025. Now, in terms of CapEx allocation going forward, we will see CapEx increasingly channeled towards 5G Standalone, which is a network architecture where 5G radios are paired with a dedicated 5G network, fixed infrastructure like the fiber upgrade we have announced for MDUs in Finland, robustness, security, and resilience so important in today's global situation, cloud-native IT to ensure we clean up and remove legacy systems that keep holding us back and, I might add, tie up a lot of unnecessary costs. On the other hand, we will be dialing back on 5G RAN rollout as this is largely complete, and we will also dial back fiber rollout in Norway given the relatively high degree of overbuild in this market.
With that, I'd like to hand over to Sigvart, who will double-click a little bit on the efforts in the Nordics. Sigvart.
Thank you, Torbjørn. Thank you very much to Torbjørn, and hello everyone. It is a fantastic pleasure to be back on stage for Telenor and to be here today. My name is Sigvart, and I'm heading up the Nordic business area. I'll take you through the Nordic section today. With me, you'll also hear from Rik Brown from Telenor Norway and Jussi Tolvanen, DNA Finland. In 2004, I was part of the first attempt at creating a cross-border integrated operation in Telenor. Needless to say, it failed. We tried to merge Sonofon, now Telenor Denmark, with Telenor Mobile Norway. Many of our competitors have tried, failed, and rolled back similar attempts at creating centralized integrated operations, and so have we.
I believe we're probably at number five or maybe the fifth attempt in Telenor Nordics now, depending a bit on how you count. What is really, really encouraging, though, is to see this spectacular turnaround in performance since the last CMD. We see it across all four BUs, which I believe must be a sign that we've found finally a model that works. A model which combines local autonomy and decision-making close to the customer with centralized Nordic organizations and collaboration in very carefully selected areas. I will, in my presentation, share some of the secret sauce behind the success and explain why there is still significant potential for improvement despite all this success. I've divided my section into three parts. Number one, I will give a bit more color on the Nordic market.
Two, where we're coming from and how we've delivered on the ambitions that we set out in the last CMD. Three, finally, where we're heading next and how we plan to get there. Let's dive in and start with the market. As Benedicte touched on, the Nordics is one of the world's most digital regions. People have high purchasing powers and expect reliable and high-quality connectivity. The region provides a solid base for sustainable growth built on world-leading mobile networks, extensive fiber coverage, and very predictable regulation. Recent geopolitical developments have made our role even more important. There is a stronger focus on resilience and security than ever before, and there is closer Nordic collaboration since Sweden and Finland joined NATO. Telenor is uniquely positioned with the largest Nordic footprint. We have a proven track record of efficient operations and cross-border collaboration.
This naturally influences our opportunity space and also serves as a backdrop for our priorities going into the next period. Over the past two years, our Nordic business has delivered very strong progress on the ambitions we set out at the last CMD. Revenue and EBITDA have grown solidly, driven by our more-for-more strategy and transformation. Excluding currency effects, our CapEx reduction target remains on track. Cost reductions progressed largely as planned. That said, we did not quite meet our three-year OpEx ambition, but that's mainly due to inflationary pressure being stronger and also lasting longer than what we anticipated. We said back then that the effect would be back-end loaded, and that's exactly what we're seeing now. We kept OpEx flat last year, and we're on track to 1%-2% year-on-year reduction by the end of 2025. Our B2B ambitions have admittedly developed slower than planned.
The red dot that you see is mainly due to price pressure in large enterprise and slower than expected adoption of 5G use cases. As you can see on this page, we have delivered solid revenue growth and margin expansion across every single business unit in the Nordics. There is clearly something that must be working in this Nordic model. We're executing well in all countries, and it clearly shows in the results. Since 2022, we have more than doubled our cash flow, surpassing even our own ambitions. In the last two years, performance has accelerated across all key metrics. Our focus going forward remains on free cash flow through margin expansion. We realize this with revenue growth combined with continued transformation. This means that we are entering the next period with a very strong momentum.
Let's face forward and talk about where we're heading next. By 2030, we expect to generate more than NOK 15 billion in free cash flow supported by a fully streamlined organization and operation. Alongside sustainable top-line growth, we're planning for OpEx reductions in the coming three years of 0% to -2% annually and a tapered CapEx profile like Torbjørn just mentioned. That means that by 2030, we aim to deliver more than three times the cash flow we generated in 2022. Our ambition in the Nordics is clear: to be the most trusted telco, continuously developing value-added services, delivering secure, reliable connectivity while upholding a strong financial discipline throughout. I see Torbjørn is smiling now. Good. This ambition rests on three pillars, as highlighted here on the left side of this slide.
First, we will drive sustainable growth and expand our services-led agenda to meet our customers' needs. Second, we will continue to capture benefits from our transformation programs both locally as well as across the Nordics. Our scale is an opportunity for us to differentiate, simplify, and drive out efficiency. Third, we will build on our strength in resilience and security. Let me now zoom in on each of these three pillars. Our growth going forward will be services-led. B2C will remain the largest contributor to growth in the Nordics. The more-for-more strategy has been exceptionally successful for us. We have increased the value to customers in our core products while increasing our pool. This has applied both for sales to new customers and for backbook migrations of existing customers to higher price combinations. The approach has given customers higher speeds, more mobile data, and more attractive hard-bundled services.
In Norway, we have one of the highest shares of value-adding services in the world. Now, going forward, we will talk about services-led growth. This augments our more-for-more strategy with service concepts that will be sold as services first and with connectivity embedded. This approach is adding a strong new set of tools complementing our proven backbook more-for-more upselling with targeted individual more-for-more sales. It adds a new growth lever to our business, laying the foundation for more sustainable long-term customer relationships and increasing our share of wallet. You'll hear Rik there is. We'll talk more about this in detail in a little while. However, it's worth noting that while Norway is really showing the way on this, we also see traction and potential with this approach in other Nordic markets. DNA has had one of the most successful product launches in recent times with their so-called DNA Håleton.
I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing it wrongly. It is a separate subscription with secure internet browsing included and with the flexibility to add other security services for an additional charge. Connectivity embedded. Services-led growth will also be true for B2B. The largest opportunity in B2B remains with small and medium-sized companies, which are expected to drive around 70% of total B2B growth in the coming years. As mentioned, we have struggled to reach our ambition in the B2B segment. Thus, we need to revitalize our core, simplify customer journeys and service portfolios, and improve our sales to strengthen competitiveness. To achieve this, we're transforming our IT and service delivery platforms across our markets, both locally through BSS transformation programs, but also by leveraging scale on select Nordic delivery platforms. Our business customers are rapidly digitalizing, and they need seamless cloud-based solutions that just work.
From security and collaboration tools to connectivity and automated call routing systems, we are very well positioned to deliver across all our markets. An increasing demand for differentiated connectivity means we are seeing that our investments in 5G are finally paying off. We also see increasing demand for mission-critical services from sectors such as defense, healthcare, and energy. These customers need secure, differentiated, and sometimes also dedicated solutions, for example, through 5G slicing, which guarantees performance even during network congestion in times of crisis. Across both B2C and B2B, we're elevating the customer experience. Every interaction should be simple and seamless. That's how it all comes together. Now, the second of our three pillars is transformation. It's at the core of how we strengthen efficiency, competitiveness, and scale across the Nordics. This is also probably the most important ingredient in the secret to our success.
Our transformation agenda combines local initiatives in each BU with selected pan-Nordic programs where scale really creates value. We have a rigorous follow-up across the Nordics with a local transformation organization in each BU reporting into a central rig. There, all progress is tracked in a common system. A structured approach with a focus on long-term value creation at the core has proven exceptionally powerful for us. Let's dive in and let's cover our pan-Nordic initiatives first. Our shared services setup is operational, and it's delivering results. It will provide 5% cost reduction annually on existing services to our BUs, while at the same time improving the quality. We intend to continue expanding the scope to capture more of the cross-market synergies that we see going forward. Moving to common products. Our go-to-market remains local, but we do leverage Nordic scale where it makes sense.
Managed services and TV are very strong examples, and Rik will share more about our new and super exciting TV service that we will launch very, very soon. Stay tuned for that. We will continue to replicate this approach to other areas where joint development adds value. AI. AI is a game changer also for us. It transforms how we serve our customers, the way we work, and how we make decisions. Our focus, however, is on a few high-impact proven use cases. One of these larger initiatives is customer service automation. In Finland, all customer care contacts for consumers are AI-first, with our chatbot resolving almost half of the incoming requests. AI has enabled significant efficiency gains across all our customer care operations in the Nordics.
Alongside these larger initiatives, we're running a long tail of smaller experiments, and then we scale rapidly when we see that we get impact. Now let's talk about procurement. We centralized Nordic procurement in April to capture value and benefits from a coordinated approach. Early results, such as recent content negotiations, show clear impact potential. A recent diagnostic indicates potential to unlock another NOK 1 billion of savings through a centralized program. Finally, we're pushing hard to make our network and IT more resilient, forcefully removing legacy and moving to a cloud-native and unified Nordic architecture. This will strengthen resilience, drive efficiency, and enable better customer experience. Let's double-click on the legacy removal journey. The copper decommissioning in Norway shown here is a very good example, where the only remaining costs are equipment-related rent that will be phased out as we remove the remaining equipment.
Not only has the decommissioning reduced cost, but it has paved the way for fiber and fixed wireless access. This means not only can we move to a more modern infrastructure, but we can radically simplify our IT systems. In the past period alone, we have retired over 250 systems across the Nordics from our tech stack. The counting continues. Removing legacy lets us focus on the future. It frees up capacity to invest in new technologies, and it is an absolute necessity for us to go cloud-native. So far, we have focused on our pan-Nordic transformation programs. Let's turn to a few of our local programs, where most of the near-term value will be realized. As I said, each market runs its own transformation agenda tailored to local priorities and coordinated across the region.
We'll cover examples from Sweden and from Norway later in the breakout sessions. For this part, I will focus on Denmark, which is a great example of how local transformation creates very, very tangible results. In Denmark, we are completely rebuilding our business and our customer experience. A new customer-facing IT stack enables a fully digital customer journey. Our customers will enjoy a Netflix-like experience with instant top-ups, tailored cross-sale offers, credit card-only payments, and an app-first support that simply just works. For most of us who are used to digital experiences, be it Uber, Bolt, Disney+, this sounds normal. In the telco world, this is actually a small revolution. The new platform simplifies operations, it standardizes products, and removes legacy, effectively reducing cost and complexity while improving customer experience at the same time. We'll use the Danish example as a template for thinking boldly.
We can try out transformation locally and then apply what we learn and scale across all markets. The program alone is expected to deliver more than NOK 200 million in annual run rate improvement. The third and final pillar is infrastructure and resilience. Delivering secure, resilient, and future-fit connectivity is not just our responsibility; it is our strategic advantage that really sets us apart. Our multi-cloud setup combines public and private cloud to balance flexibility and control. Our world-class networks, with their incredible coverage and performance, enable advanced 5G services. Infrastructure resilience, exemplified by dual homing and multi-redundant networks, keeps customers connected even during outages, sabotage, or extreme weather. We are also in the forefront of cybersecurity, preventing billions of attacks each year and offering a robust portfolio of trusted security products. Trust, reliability, and innovation remain at the heart of absolutely everything that we do.
Telenor Norway is out in front, having consistently demonstrated its ability to turn trust and brand position into tangible business value. Once again, Rik will touch on our security position in a little bit. Let's now focus in on our four Nordic operations to see how each contributes to our overall performance. While each has unique challenges, the focus everywhere is on services-led growth and transformation. This consistent focus across the business is another element of our secret sauce. Telenor Norway has delivered stellar financial results since 2022, driven by a clear focus on profitable growth and an expanding portfolio of both bundled and standalone services. This has resulted in an industry-leading share of value-added services. As you can see on the left, we see ARPU growth, especially notable in the recent years. It has been supported by our more for more strategy.
At the same time, we've maintained a disciplined cost focus, reducing OpEx every year and lowered FTEs by around 4% annually since 2016. This has obviously led to a steady increase of margins. Now, moving to the right side of the page, we hold the number one position in mobile. With a highly trusted brand and outstanding network quality, we're well positioned to capture ARPU growth through value-added services. We'll also strengthen our number two fixed position through the GlobalConnect acquisition, which will increase our customer base. Looking ahead, our priority is to continue growth through services, where increasingly our services-first agenda will augment our more for more approach. We are mid-journey in our transformation program. We'll continue simplifying operations and reinventing our IT foundation, going cloud-native while driving out legacy. Telenor Sweden has delivered a very successful financial turnaround over the last two years.
We have achieved market-leading profit growth by improving both our customer base as well as ARPU. This is in a four-player market where we currently hold the number three position. As you can see on the right-hand side, we see clear opportunities as the B2C market is expected to grow another 3% per year. Our 5G leadership gives us a strong platform for future profitable growth. We have Sweden's fastest network, covering 99.9% of the population, and we're now entering a monetization phase across our customer segments. After a strong turnaround, Sweden is now set for sustainable growth, building on its network advantage and growing customer trust. Now, Denmark. Telenor Denmark has delivered a fantastic turnaround in one of Europe's most competitive markets. In an environment of constant price pressure, commercial discipline and effective base management have driven value creation, improving both customer satisfaction as well as ARPU.
We have combined this with tight cost control, with a leaner organization, with faster decision-making. We have reduced our FTEs by 7% per year over the last nine years. These efforts have translated into solid results, with revenues up 4% and EBITDA growing 7% annually since 2022. If you turn your eyes to the top right of this page, you can see that we are the number two player in mobile, with market-leading scores in both customer satisfaction as well as employee satisfaction. Telenor Denmark will be positioned for further services-led growth with a renewed and improved platform in 2026. To sum up this section, the two most important ingredients in our secret Nordic sauce are our track record and continued focus on services-led growth and a relentless execution on our transformation agenda. That gives me reason to be optimistic also about the coming period.
With that, now I'll hand over to Jussi, who will share our exceptional journey in Finland and also talk to why we're continuing to invest in fiber. Go ahead.
Tack, Jussi Sigvart. It's great to be here at CMD. I'm Jussi Tolvanen, head of DNA, which is the Telenor brand in Finland. I'm very pleased to go through our story, what we've done, a little bit of facts about our performance, our ambition, and our strategy. Then I'll talk a bit more about the recent fiber investment announcement that we did on the multi-toilet units. In Finland, we have already come a long way since Telenor acquired DNA in 2019. We are successfully on the journey from moving from being a challenger to becoming one of the market leaders in the market with the most loved brand.
As you can see from the graphs, we have delivered growth across the board. We've been adding subscribers. We've been increasing ARPU in both mobile and fixed, and also reducing OpEx at the same time. There is a lot to be proud of. The previous strategy period has been very successful for DNA, and it's thanks to our employees. We now hold number two position in mobile and number one position in fixed subscriptions in the market. We have captured market shares in both B2C and B2B, and it's due to our focus on customer experience. When the customers are happy, they tend to buy more. Also, on the customer experience, the customers reward us with one of the highest customer satisfaction scores in the market. Our networks are in great shape, and we are receiving awards on the network quality.
We actually transmit the highest amount of data per subscription in our mobile networks in whole Europe. That is a proof point of the strength and quality of our networks. We are not standing still. We have ongoing transformation on our both business side and tech side as well, so that we are able to remove legacy systems. We are able to continuously simplify our operations, which then frees up capacity and boosts efficiency, and that makes us future-fit DNA. All of this, actually, as I said previously, reflects the exceptional people we have at DNA. We want to be the best place to work and learn with our humane and one-of-a-kind working culture. Looking ahead, the Finnish market remains dynamic. We expect increasing competition. There are new MVNOs in the market. Also, we expect stronger demand from businesses for secure and reliable connectivity.
Our competitors are increasing investments, especially on the single-toilet units. There are certain regulatory changes in the fixed space in the market. We have clear ambitions in place to meet these changing market demands. First of all, on the consumer side, we believe we are able to kind of sustain our growth through our differentiated dual-front strategy combined with AI-driven efficiency. On the business side, we will expand our operations and growth through secure and seamless connectivity supported by predictive automation. Finally, we are stepping up on the fiber investment to capture attractive market opportunities, as illustrated in our recently announced investment to multi-toilet units to upgrade from cable to fiber, which I will return to shortly. With this combination, we have a strong foundation and kind of forward-looking actions to be well positioned to strengthen our market position also going forward.
As many of you know, we recently announced that we are investing EUR 120 million to upgrade our multi-tenant networks from coax to fiber. I will go through first why the demand of fiber is continuing to grow. Secondly, why this investment is strategically important for us. Thirdly, what kind of impacts we expect to have from this investment. Finland lags behind Norway and Sweden on fiber maturity, and it's because we have very good mobile networks and alternatives. At the same time, we see clear indication that the fiber demand in the market is increasing continuously. Our customers demand high speed, low latency, and reliable connectivity, which then powers everything from streaming and gaming at home to cloud-based tools at work. Fiber is a great technology to meet those demands, and there are several reasons why we are investing in the fiber. Firstly, it's about protecting revenues.
We are delivering about NOK 1.2 billion of direct revenues of fiber, sorry, fixed in Finland, and still 25% of that is based on coax networks. Secondly, fixed is a highly effective entry point for cross-sell. More than 50% of DNA's fixed broadband customers also take mobile from us. Thirdly, fixed improves loyalty. Customers with both fixed and mobile churn 40% less compared to mobile-only customers. There has been a lot of build-out on the single-toilet units by infrastructure investors in the market rather than traditional operators. That segment is now largely mature. The next wave of growth will come from multi-toilet units, and this segment actually offers attractive growth potential with higher profitability. This upgrade is an investment designed to future-proof our current and future customer base. We want to stay ahead of the rising customer expectations and position DNA for sustained leadership.
We want to protect our customer base today, but also we want to win new customers going forward. From the technology point, coax is fine today, but the expectations are rising, and we want to ensure that our customers get superior experience before they look elsewhere. This also ensures our market leadership both through growth, but also reduced churn. That is critical. The strong fixed position is critical for our overall long-term competitiveness in DNA. Although this is a significant investment, we believe this is a scalable investment with solid expected returns. When we do this upgrading area by area, we build once and connect many homes at the same time. This means we can avoid repeated construction work, which then maximizes the efficiency and also expands our connection-ready footprint in the market.
So, to summarize, this is a targeted and scalable investment that strengthens our fixed position, protects our base, and sets us up to lead in the Finnish market, not just today, but for the long term. Now, having covered Finland, I'll hand it over to Rik to talk about services-first strategy in Norway.
Great. Thank you very much, Jussi. Really inspiring to see what you guys do in Finland. Hi, good morning, everyone. It's great to be here. My name is Rik, and I'm CMO in Norway. And I have the great pleasure today of talking to you about our services-first strategy for the consumer market. Before I dive into it, I just wanted to start with a quick definition of services-first. By services, we mean value-added services in contrast to our underlying mobile and broadband connectivity products.
Specifically, we're talking at this stage about digital security and entertainment services. By first, we mean that if a customer first chooses a security or entertainment product from us, then it's much more likely that they're also going to buy the underlying or embedded connectivity service from us at the same time. This means that the services-first strategy allows us to take a larger share of the strongly growing security and entertainment markets, whilst at the same time strengthening our underlying connectivity business. Now, this is a theme that we're a bit bullish on in Telenor Norway. We think that we've done a little bit better job than most of our peers at driving the value-added services agenda. You can see that to an extent in the figures that you see from our financial reporting.
However, if we choose to dig just a little bit deeper into our figures, and we look at the share of our mobile revenue, which is due to the bundled security and insurance services, then we can see that already today, somewhere around about mid-30% of our B2C revenue in Norway is driven by our security, insurance, and TV and entertainment portfolios. Already about mid-30%. We think in the next three years that this is going to be the key driver of our growth, and that that percentage is going to rise to low- to mid-40% in the next three-year period. Incredibly important driver of our growth. We have been looking for what we might call a holy grail of services-first value propositions. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean essentially three things.
The holy grail of a services-first value proposition would be a customer offering which is attractive to many customers when they have a high willingness to pay, and when there's a high attachment rate of the underlying connectivity products. Now, since I'm standing here talking about this today, I guess that you can guess that we think we found one of these holy grails. In fact, we think we found two. After more customer interactions, more tests than you can shake a stick at, we now have strongly validated concepts for services-first concepts in security and entertainment. That's what I want to talk about today. Let's start with cybersecurity. Our customers, the Norwegian people, are worried about cyber threats. They're very worried.
In fact, they're so worried that if we show them a list of different security services that we could deliver to them and ask them how they value them, then customers value eight different security functionalities at NOK 50 per month or more, showing a very clear and high willingness to pay for security. It is not just that the customer wants the products that protect them. Customers are uncertain. They are looking for advice, help to set themselves up to be safe. They are looking for notification or warning if they are in particular danger. Not least, they are looking for help if they get in trouble. It is important for customers that that comes from a credible local supplier who they know and trust, and that is who is easily available for them. Now, who could that be? The Telenor brand is about the most trusted brand in Norway for digital security.
Three to four times as many Norwegians trust Telenor for their digital security as other operators. In fact, this is so important for us that our brand promise in the market now is based on security. It's what we call Hele Norges Sikkerhetsnett, which roughly translated to English is the whole of Norway Safety Net. Our aim is to be the natural supplier of customers' digital peace of mind. So, we have now defined and strongly validated a concept that we're calling internally FraudStop, which is a suite of cyber protection services. And this validation is great. I mean, I have to say, the first time I saw these validation figures, I thought, "Wow." In fact, I thought it was a little bit more colorful language. Because these figures are great. As you can see behind me, stated interest from customers seeing this FraudStop concept is at 77%.
Now, just as a comparison, that's more people than voted for Red, Socialist, Left, Labor, Green, Center, Liberal, Christian Democrat, and Conservatives at the last general election. While we may disagree about politics, we can pretty much all agree that digital security is important. Then 24% of customers, when shown a realistic price for this concept, state an immediate intention to buy. This is without any prior information, without any marketing, without any salesperson encouraging them, and without any special pricing and discounting. Very high figure. I'd almost say through the roof for this type of test. That's two of the three elements of the holy grail. The third part is that if you want to enjoy the full protection of the FraudStop concept, you also have to be a customer on the underlying connectivity services.
This slightly strange graph on your right-hand side indicates that of the customers who say they will buy this service, if they're already a mobile subscriber, 54% of customers said that they would then include a new broadband subscription into the concept. If you're already a broadband subscriber, then 69% would include a mobile subscription or more, more than one, into the concept. That is then the last part of the holy grail. For us, it's a way that we can drive fixed mobile conversion in the market without using heavy discounts. We plan to launch a concept based on FraudStop in the first quarter. Okay, let's just switch mode. Now go over to entertainment. Here I'm going to be talking about streaming services. Think Netflix streaming services.
Now, according to our customer surveys, 33% of Norwegians say they've lost control of which streaming services they subscribe to. 40% are frustrated that they can't find the content that they want to watch or it's not available to them. Whilst 90% of people in Norway use streaming services, almost none of them understand how much they pay each month for that. We've developed this concept that we call StreamMix, which is a pretty simple concept in many ways, but it's something that fixes these pain points for our customers. It gives customers one place to buy their streaming services at a fixed monthly price. Customers can choose three services. Let's say HBO Max, Sky Showtime, and Viaplay. On a monthly basis, they can swap in and out of other services.
After a month, you might want to swap one of those out with HBO Max. You can do this for a fixed monthly price of NOK 499, or if you're a Telenor mobile customer, NOK 399. Now, for that price, you get your three services. You get the standard version without any of that irritating advertising. You also have an opportunity for an extra charge to upgrade to premium versions of the services. For example, including premium content like football, or you can add a service four, five, or six again for an additional charge. For launch, we have what we think is a real stellar list of content providers. We have, as part of our launch package, Netflix, HBO Max, Viaplay, Sky Showtime, Apple TV, and TV2 with an upgrade possibility to Disney+.
Most, almost all of the really big players in the market. With this content lineup and these prices, almost seven out of ten customers express interest, and a whopping 30% state an immediate intention to buy. Again, off the charts for our figures. In a similar way to FraudStop, we see there is also an impact on the underlying attachment of the connectivity services, again allowing us to drive that business. Services-first is about delivering great new customer experiences. It is about fixing real pain points, and it is about making a step up in the way that the customers interact with and experience us. It is also for us a way to sweat our market assets. We have got a really strong brand. We have got strong distribution. We have 3.8 million paying customer relationships, which create 13 million customer interactions every year.
You can think of that as a foundation in our business. Then we can layer on top of that that we now have a state-of-the-art data analytics and AI platform from Google that allows us increasingly to target just the right offer to the right customer at the right time, in the right channel, at the right price. That takes us back to what Sigvart talked about on how this augments the more for more strategy. Whilst more for more is about taking existing product areas and creating more value in the existing products, both backbook and frontbook, services-first is new value propositions to customers. It is about building individual one-to-one upsales, which then over time lead to new customer bases that we can then do the same sort of value creation on in the future. We think that this is the key to our growth.
We think that we deliver more, deeper, long-term customer relationships. It makes us less vulnerable to price attacks on individual product areas. It is the key to accelerating our growth as we move forward and contributing to the NOK 15 billion in cash flow we expect to see in 2030. Just the last word, in case you're wondering, StreamMix launches in the market on Monday. If you're a Norwegian, love push up. Thank you.
Thank you, Rik. Thanks for a great and engaging note. Please, you might actually remain on stage, Rik, because now we're actually going for the first Q&A round for the day. I would like to also welcome our Group CEO, Benedicte, and Torbjørn, the CFO, and also Sigvart, the Head of Nordics, on stage with me. We will now invite the analysts to ask their questions.
An important note, please save questions relating to the next part of the agenda regarding the other business areas and the financial ambitions to the second Q&A we have today. Also, please limit yourself to only one question to give everyone a chance. We have quite less than 20 minutes, so please keep it short, and then we'll have a break. Operator, are you there?
Yes, thank you. At this time, we invite those analysts wishing to ask a question to click on the raise hand button, which can be found on the bottom of your screen. When it is your turn, you will receive a prompt to be promoted as a panelist. Please accept, wait a moment, and once you have been introduced, you may unmute yourself, turn your video on, and ask your question.
Thank you. While the queue forms, we will start with questions from the physical audience here today in Oslo. To those in the room, please wait for the microphones. They will be passed on here. We will start with the first question from Nick Lyall in the front row here. If you could pass Nick the microphone, please, that would be great.
Yeah, morning. Thanks, Frank. It's Nick Lyall from Berenberg. I'll keep it to one as you see. You talked about all levers on ROCI being used potentially. Anything new? Why not talking about M&A in Sweden and Denmark, for example, which seems a very, very big lever in terms of synergies you might be able to use? Could you talk us through maybe some of the criteria you think about when you're assessing that for the long-term plan, and what might be the restrictions at the moment?
Benedicte, do you want to take that question?
Sure. We certainly do see that also some of the Nordic markets would benefit from structural changes. We would definitely be on the alert if there's anything moving in that space. However, I do not think it's wise to communicate any details around that until we have something concrete to communicate.
Can I just maybe come back on that? I mean, you did mention this back in sort of Q1 or Q2. Is it just a difficult slow process in terms of sellers? I mean, what's holding things up in a sense? Because you seem prepared and the plan is prepared as well. What's taking time?
I guess, I mean, first, elements in the market have to be on the move, right? There has to be some opportunities to grow. That's one thing. The other thing that is still in the open is, of course, whether there will be a regulatory environment allowing structural changes to happen. We do see now that there are some positive signs in the EU on this point, but any transaction in any country in Europe would require approvals both on a country level as well as on an EU level. The jury is a bit out still. We hope to see some positive movements there as well.
Thank you. The next question is from Felix Henriksson over at Nordea. Andrew, we will get to you next.
Hi, Felix from Nordea. Thanks for taking my question. It's on CapEx, where you've communicated the desire to lower the capital intensity in the Nordics down to 11%-12% by 2030. I'm just curious on what kind of assumptions that number sort of bakes in in terms of, let's say, newer business opportunities relating to AI, RAN, 6G, and also sovereign cloud for that matter. Are those something that are sort of embedded in that number? Thank you.
Torb jørn?
Yeah, sure. As we made clear, as I made clear in my presentation, we've gotten to a point now where sort of 5G RAN rollout, et cetera, is kind of past that. The focus now will be more on adding features that will allow 5G standalone and like. If you look at the profile of it, we do see a tapering of, call it the network-related, but a continued investment in IT, which is, of course, important in part due to the transformation, taking legacy out, and also adding new features over time. Like with any CapEx, this will be based on the visibility we have today. We note, like everyone else, the chatter in the market about 6G, AI, RAN, et cetera. We think we encourage, of course, innovation.
We think that 5G has a long runway of features and capabilities that kind of removes the need to look at those types of upgrades in sort of the near to medium term, I would say. Those are some of the fundamental things that underpin our CapEx forecast.
Yeah, I will take the next question from Andrew Lee of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
I don't need to introduce myself now, so thank you. Just a simple question on the EBITDA growth, hopefully. You've guided to low to mid-single-digit EBITDA growth on a compound basis over the next three years for the Nordics. You presented your guidance you'd set out in 2022, which was for mid-single digits. You still sound pretty confident in top-line growth, sound pretty confident in cost-cutting. You've delivered more than mid-single-digit growth, even X the ICE impact. So, what's getting worse and driving you to guide to worse EBITDA growth than you've delivered and guided to in the past?
Could I perhaps, maybe we should hold the financial questions to later when I have the financial section so that we can prioritize questions on the first part of the presentation. That's all right, Andrew. We will try to address your question then.
We'll elaborate on this in detail in the next section. That's why.
Okay, so just a Nordic question then, operationally, what's getting worse?
Switch it to me then. I think in all fairness, we've been running consistently now with transformation over a long period of time. I think particularly the last three years, you've seen what has come out in terms of cost improvements, et cetera. To a certain degree, we've taken some of the lower-hanging fruits. I think having said that, we have also built up a very, very strong muscle in managing the transformation, both locally as well as across the Nordics. The difficulty is increasing, but I also think that our competency in actually running these changes has increased as well. That's why I remain sort of pretty optimistic with our ability to continue this journey.
Okay, thank you. Thank you for that. We'll have the next question from Max.
Good morning. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I'm Max Findlay from Rothschild & Co. Redburn. You've clearly discussed the benefits for AI, both on the top line and for OpEx. I'm interested to know what are the threats. One risk appears to be perhaps accelerated churn if AI enables consumers to more easily switch providers and have clearer visibility on tariffs, making products like StreamMix less relevant in Norway. What do you see the risks of AI being?
That's an interesting question. You might want to elaborate together with me, Sigvart. I think I'd like to start with that we actually have many AI projects across Telenor in order to make our operations more effective. As you say, we are doing that mainly on the areas where we can actually control and use AI to improve our operational efficiencies. How it pans out in the market on consumer services and how they apply it, I mean, it's just early days to say, isn't it? I mean, it will be, it's difficult to predict. I think Jussi has the answer, the holy grail to that.
Not a holy grail, but how we try to look at AI is that it has more or less kind of four buckets. The first one is the kind of personal productivity in our own operations. The second one is how do we redesign and reinvent business processes and innovation. The third one is about how do we monetize AI-driven products. The fourth one is about agentic AI and what it means in practice internally, but also how the customers are going to use agentic AI going forward. Those are the buckets that we are all the time analyzing and try to find solutions and offerings based on those buckets.
Okay, thanks for that. I think we'll have the next question over here from Ondrej of UBS.
Hi everyone, and thank you, and congratulations on the presentation. I had a question on the growth in the Nordics because you've had one of the strongest top lines in the sector for a couple of years now. A big part of that is obviously, as you've been at least in Norway, some of the value-added services that you've scaled up to some degree. I was wondering, with this new presentation, you seem to be highlighting a couple of material opportunities. How do you see the contribution from value-added services going forward? And then how do you, I guess, emulate the success from Norway into other countries in the Nordics, if at all? Thank you.
Sigvart?
Yeah, I can maybe start, and then Rik, if you want to jump in.
We don't have that much time for you.
So I'll take it then.
Give it a quick one.
Now, I think without sort of repeating my presentation, I think this is a key focus. When we look at the growth going forward, we see mainly, or one of the key contributors is the services and the value-added services. Rik has pointed to two of the really exciting concepts that we are just about to launch. What we constantly do now is to replicate those successful concepts across the Nordics. Actually, StreamMix is inspired from Denmark and a concept called CBB Mix, which was launched already some time ago. This is how we work together in order to take inspiration and also scale those concepts that work.
Okay, with that, I think we'll need to go to the online audience to also give them a chance to ask their question. Operator, are you with me?
Yes, so our first question will come from Ajay Soni at JP Morgan. You may now unmute your audio, turn your camera on, and ask your question.
Guys, thanks for taking my question. I've got one question just on Finland. It appears that the CLACS upgrade continues to increase beyond 2028. Could you provide a bit of detail, could you provide a bit of detail on how many households you would have upgraded by the end of 2028, and then how many households are still remaining to be upgraded beyond this? Thank you.
Jussi?
Yeah, so currently we have about 700,000 customers connected to our fixed broadband. As I said, about 25% of that is based on coax. By the end of 2027, sorry, 2028, our plan is to move it all to be based on fiber. That's where we are. At the same time, of course, we expect to drive growth in the customer base at the same time.
Good, hope that answers your question. We'll take the next question from the line.
The next question is from Ulrich Rathe at Bernstein. Please unmute yourself and begin with the question.
Yeah, thanks very much. Sorry, I'm facing a video constraint here. My question is on the services in Norway. If I understood the presentation correctly, you're including the TV revenues in the revenue share of the VAS. Could you comment on the outlook that you see for linear TV? Obviously, there is an active debate in the house of the bulls and the bears. What are your assumptions with regard to the VAS element of the linear TV service? Thank you.
Okay, I'll take that. Yeah. The first question is that the TV revenues are included in the numbers that I was sharing on the value-added services. That's a simple yes. We've seen a decline in the usage of linear TV in the market. We expect that that decline will continue. What we're focused on now is to ensure that no matter how the customers want to consume their TV content, we have an appropriate solution for them.
We're in a sense de-risking our business from exactly whether that's going to tip a little way, a little up or a little down by making sure that we have the StreamMix concept and some other stuff we're doing on our TV and entertainment business to make sure that we always have a relevant offer to the customer and that we can continue to drive that as a good and healthy business for ourselves.
Thank you, Rik. Do we have one more? Thank you, and that concludes our online question for this round. We have a question from Christoffer Bjørnsen with DNB Carnegie over here. Thank you.
Thank you.
That will be our last question before we need to take the break.
Sure. On the CapEx side, you noted that you're dialing down the fiber investments over the next couple of years, except in Finland. You still have quite a material customer base of households in Norway still on cable or coaxial. I'm just interested in hearing your view on how you think about those in the years ahead. Will they just remain on coax and be up for grabs by competitors, or are those included in the plan to kind of convert those to fiber?
Yeah, Sigvart?
Yeah, I think we've signaled a somewhat tapering of the investments, but that doesn't mean that we are stopping the investments. We'll continue to invest also in the Nordic market and rolling out fiber in the coming period. I don't think we're guiding it on the exact number, but the general answer is that it's tapering, but not stopping.
By the way, we'll have a breakout session on the Nordic fixed markets and comparing those later today at 12:30. For now, that concludes our first Q&A round for this CMD. We'll have a second one later, as mentioned. Now we'll have a 10-minute break. Please be back here at 10:30 sharp. Thank you. At 10:50, of course. 10:50 sharp .
Okay. Hello everybody, welcome back. My name is Jon Omund , and I am Head of Telenor Asia. Let me now take the next few minutes to wake you up again. To walk you through the performance of Telenor's portfolio in Asia and our plans going forward. Here's something happened. At the 2022 Capital Market Day, we unveiled a strategy for Asia that is to modernize and improve our portfolio of companies to continue to deliver leading cash returns.
We have created market-leading players in Malaysia and Thailand through Southeast Asia's largest telco mergers, where synergies are realized through network integration and digitalization of operations. By these mergers, we have also taken down the direct risk to Telenor. Grameenphone in Bangladesh continues to be the number one player in that market and has continued its transformation journey to drive operational efficiency. We announced back in 2023, in December 2023, the sale of Telenor Pakistan. We did that as we did not see a path to a number one position in that market. That sale has recently received approval from the Competition Commission of Telenor Pakistan, and we expect the transaction to be completed and the process to complete quite soon now. Overall, Asia has delivered well on the Capital Market 2022 strategic ambitions.
However, we did fall short of achieving the accumulated free cash flow ambition set to NOK 12 billion to Telenor Group. This is primarily due to FX effects and macro conditions. In addition, there was a NOK 1.7 billion settlement with the regulator in Bangladesh, and we have also had disputes on tax in Telenor Pakistan. Looking at Asia, we have fundamentally reshaped the portfolio from having operational control with the risk that comes related to that to now having one controlled company and two associated companies, which has taken down the risk exposure to Telenor ASA significantly. Across these large markets, we serve around 200 million customers, which is approximately 95% of the customer base of Telenor. On a 100% basis, the total revenue of our assets in Asia generated NOK 113 billion in revenue over the last 12 months.
The portfolio value currently stands at NOK 90 billion, up from NOK 79 billion before the mergers. Our total shareholder return, ownership adjusted, grew by 27% in that same three-year timeframe. We have unlocked synergies, we have strengthened balance sheets, and positioned our assets for sustainable value creation and higher dividend capacity going forward. From a regional perspective, Asia has a robust long-term growth potential. This is driven by advanced connectivity and digital infrastructure and services that our companies provide to these markets. Our strategy is to be an active owner and develop our portfolio of companies with the perspective of long-term value creation. On this slide, we highlight three areas that strengthen our growth perspectives in the region. First, across our three markets, the middle class is expected with a higher disposable income.
This part of the population is expected to grow to almost 100 million people in the coming period. That increases the share of the population from 28% to 34%. Second, in Grameenphone, 40% of the customer base are not on data yet. This represents already an untapped potential for future growth. For example, the country's young youth-based population, they need data for education, for entertainment, for financial services, and social connections going forward, and they do so at increasing speed. Lastly, in the mature markets, Thailand and Malaysia, their digital economies are expected to continue to grow. Southeast Asia is estimated to reach $1 trillion in gross merchandise value by 2030.
This figure represents the total value of goods and services sold online, and it really showcases the region's accelerating shift into a digital commerce environment and the significant opportunity that telco players have acting as the backbone for this growth. Let me now take you through the assets in detail, focusing on growth levers and how we drive efficiency and our ownership priorities. Starting in Bangladesh, Grameenphone is a strategically important asset within the portfolio, and it has demonstrated solid execution and paying steadily dividends over the past years in a challenging macroeconomic environment. Growth will come from the ongoing shift from voice to data, and to capture this, Grameenphone will simplify and monetize a data-centric product portfolio enabled by improvements in the overall data network experience.
The shift is ongoing, and we see positive signs in the market responding to our drive for a simplified data product and protecting ARPU in the market. We are also positive to a potential low-band spectrum, and we will carefully evaluate other needed spectrum renewals with capital discipline and long-term evaluation in mind. The transformation in GP includes the use of AI to drive growth and a shift to a cloud-based technology and continued organizational changes. Grameenphone has, for example, started now this or in 2024, a full transfer of the 14 IT systems into a cloud-native setup, simplifying IT and driving a better customer experience based on a better sort of less IT incidents, better processes, and closer to customer, higher innovation speed.
In Grameenphone, besides driving performance and steady dividends, we will ensure that GP continues to focus on sustainability, on governance, on compliance, and responsible business practices also in the future. Let me spend a couple of words on how Grameenphone will use AI to create value across three pillars. First, AI for growth. In a pilot with Meta, we saw revenue growth in a high double digit with sales of a chatbot offering, which is creating personalized offerings on MyGP app. Torbjørn mentioned this in the OE earlier today. These are really promising results. Over 20 million or close to 25% of the customer base in GP, they are daily users on the MyGP app, and they use it to stream content, to get news updates, and to play games, etc.
Grameenphone, they continue to digitalize the distribution and touchpoints with the aim to growing subscribers on MyGP app by double digits over the coming five-year period. Second, AI for efficiency. AI is embedded in operation. It's primarily to drive network and energy optimization. With the AI technology, the team can now forecast, predict, and optimize energy consumption at the base stations, and Grameenphone are targeting a NOK 1 billion OpEx savings over the coming five years by the use of machine learning and AI technology in their operations. Finally, AI for people, which we call AI and I. This is about embedding AI into everybody's life in operation so we can secure that they're maximizing their productivity in daily work. Baseline AI modules are mandatory for all, all from Fieldforce to CXOs.
They are supplemented by classroom learnings for targeted groups, and we have deep dive certification courses for AI champions and domain experts. As Benedicte mentioned earlier today, AI and I will now be used as the umbrella for AI competence building across the Telenor Group. I move to the associated companies. Firstly, these mergers represent the largest mergers across the region ever executed in our industry. There are many examples of how these types of mergers can fail. There are many reasons for that. However, we are very pleased to see how these two mega mergers have successfully executed in the first three plus years now. Let me start with Thailand. The successful execution of the integration plan and synergy realization from network and organizational development has really resulted in a strong financial performance with three consecutive quarters of profits behind us now.
This includes a reduced CapEx to sales significantly. The company has improved the EBITDA by THB 7.5 billion, implying a margin expansion of 15 percentage points since amalgamation. They report an EBITDA margin of more than 65% now. At the same time, they've reduced leverage and improved interest rates and interest costs. True have reduced more than 35% of the headcount since amalgamation by the end of Q3 2025, significantly ahead of the plan set forth. In total, and as a result of these, market capitalization of True has increased by 37% since amalgamation. True now has the most comprehensive spectrum portfolio across low, mid, and high bands in the country, and it's leading in offering connectivity in Thailand. You might have seen it a few days back.
True has declared an interim dividend for Q3 2025 of 125% of its net profits, and we expect the final dividend to be declared for Q4 2025 at the AGM next year. In addition, the board has suggested its intention to propose to pay no less than 50% of net profits on a semi-annual dividend payout going forward. True has consistently outperformed its integration targets and delivered improvements ahead of schedule. Nakul, True CFO, he is having a breakout session later today. He will explain more on the journey that they are on. While some macro risks, slower than expected tourism, for example, persist, we strongly believe in the resilience and the growth focus of this company. It's transforming, it's transforming its operation. It's a two-player market, and it gives us strong belief that this will be value creating for Telenor going forward.
Moving to Malaysia, CelcomDigi has a leading position in terms of both subscriber and revenue market share. We also see very solid execution of the integration of the two companies. CelcomDigi has concluded a full network integration with the modernization of all 14,000 sites, providing a better customer experience for consumers and enterprises. In a very competitive market, the company has maintained a very strong focus on financial discipline, and they have delivered consistent value to Telenor, paying NOK 3.5 billion in dividends for the past three years. In the next phase of transformation, CelcomDigi will accelerate momentum in mobile and convergent growth with an even stronger focus on operational efficiency. As Torbjørn pointed to in Q3, we continue to see short-term challenges from an unprecedented 5G approach in the country.
DNB, or the Digital National Bearheart, is a government-owned special purpose vehicle established to operate a single national 5G network. However, after the establishment of this DNB, the regulator decided to launch a second 5G license, which was awarded to the smallest operator in the country. In our Q3 presentation, we highlighted that DNB has described its distressed financial situation in its financial report. DNB's shareholders are working closely with the government to improve its financial and operational position, and there are constructive discussions with the government, particularly focused on securing competitive 5G spectrum to help improve DNB's financial and operational position. Short term, it is therefore key for Telenor, as an active owner, to work with partners to support CelcomDigi in strengthening DNB, and by that, the competitiveness and profitability of CelcomDigi's 5G offerings to the market.
A few words on what we mean with this term active ownership. Basically, we influence and secure priorities through strategic governance, talent deployment, and operational excellence across our associated companies. Under the active ownership model with equal representation in board and board committees in the associated companies, our companies are driven to focus on performance to deliver shareholder value. We ensure good strategy by deploying right talents and capabilities in key positions. As an example, 56% of top management in our associated companies have come from Telenor. To summarize, the Asia portfolio today has been restructured well and de-risked with a smaller direct Asia exposure to Telenor shareholders compared to before when we had full control of a larger number of assets. Our associated companies have increased market value, and they are well placed for a stronger free cash flow and dividend capacity for the long term.
Despite some short-term challenges, conditions are in place for a strengthened free cash flow and dividend capacity. The headwinds to the free cash flow that we expect in 2026 and 2027 can be summarized in a few bullets. First, the macroeconomic recovery in Bangladesh is taking somewhat longer than anticipated, so it may slow the overall market momentum in the country. Secondly, with the mounting transition from voice to data, we will further improve the data network capacity and the coverage of data network to ensure that Grameenphone's position within data is competitive going forward. This will add some CapEx on top in the short to medium term.
In addition, a potential low-band spectrum and up to four license renewals in the second half of 2026 may imply a short-term step-up in spectrum payments since the majority of the spectrum bands up for renewal was paid a number of years ago. You can look at the investor relations spectrum resource page for details regarding this. Third, the ongoing restructuring of DNB in Malaysia could create transitional challenges for CelcomDigi. Finally, we hope to conclude the transaction in Telenor Pakistan in the next months. This will reduce the overall Asia cash flow from 2026 and onwards. For reference, Telenor Pakistan is expected to give approximately NOK 500 million in 2025. To wrap up, our long-standing presence in Asia uniquely positions us to be an active owner on driving our companies to create value for long term.
We are confident that the assets will transform and be future-fit in terms of organization, in terms of customer experience, in terms of transformed IT and networks, and the use of modern technology and AI. While we operate with the perspective of developing the value of our assets and create long-term value, I will repeat what Benedicte said earlier and what you will hear Torbjørn state, that we do look for simplification options and structural opportunities for these assets that create value to Telenor in the medium to long term. With that, Torbjørn, over to you.
Thank you, Jon Omund . Yeah, the mike is on . Before we get to the financial section, I will say a few words about our two smaller but still important business areas, infrastructure and AMP.
I think AMP is a very appropriate name, having seen the head of AMP play electric guitar in front of 3,000 employees last week, and it did a wonderful job. We were all amped up. Now, infrastructure manages our Nordic towers, our sovereign data center, as well as the AI factory initiative. AMP oversees smaller businesses at various life cycles, and some of them we will be looking to grow, perhaps integrate them to the core, whereas others we will look to exit. Now, looking at the period behind us, and broadly speaking, we think we have met the ambitions set out for these business areas at the last CMD in 2022. If we start with the infrastructure area, we significantly improved the operational and financial performance of the tower business.
Aside from the sale of 30% of Telenor fiber in Norway to KKR, we have not, and I underline not, been pressing ahead with divestments in the infrastructure area due to, one, changes in the macro and geopolitical landscape that Benedicte showed, with increased focus on ownership and security of infrastructure. We also see that there is heightened caution amongst operators on the risk-benefit analysis of infra divestments, having been surprised by price adjustment clauses and the like. Now, as I've said in the past at many of the investor meetings we've had throughout this year, we prefer to see infra stake divestments as an optionality we would like to preserve should the need arise. This is not something we are exploring actively. In AMP, we said we would monetize non-core assets, focus on IoT and security, and enter into partnerships. We have done all of that.
We have secured more than NOK 6 billion in proceeds from exits, including Alente, which has now received regulatory clearance and should close this month. Cyber Defense has been established, and Connection has continued focus on Nordic collaboration to serve our B2B customers with IoT-related services. Now, the starting point for the Infrastructure business area was to address our own needs for a sovereign, secure, and sustainable infrastructure and to optimize the performance while increasing asset utilization and returns by sharing this with external customers. In towers, Telenor has the largest site portfolio in the Nordics, and we have overdelivered on the profitability increase forecasted for the tower business at our previous CMD. We will continue to drive operational excellence whilst retaining optionality to explore strategic partnerships in the future.
In addition, we have a dedicated AI infrastructure with the first sovereign AI factory in Norway already being commercially operational. This niche position will be scaled with demand, and any future investments will, of course, depend on demand as well as a good return on capital employed profile. The same applies with our data center JV, Sygard, which is also exploring inorganic growth opportunities. Telenor controls the largest tower portfolio in the Nordics. We have a clear number one position in the Norwegian market, and if you include the JV sites, a shared number one position in Sweden and Denmark. Rising external revenues and efficiency gains have been the main drivers of profitability increases since 2022. Now, we will continue driving return on these assets through continued streamlining of the operations. As seen, I think you need to flip the slide. Thank you.
As seen on the left here, as legacy fixed technology, essentially copper, has been decommissioned, there are thousands of towers, non-mobile sites that are no longer needed. These costs will be removed from the cost base over time. As shown in the graph in the middle, towers has delivered a significant uplift in profitability over the years. We will continue to streamline the operations. We will continue to automate processes and invest in renewal and resilience, ensuring these strategic assets remain secure and ready for monetization should we choose to do so in the future. Moving to our business area, AMP. Here, we develop businesses that are close to core, or if relevant, we divest them to stronger and more natural owners. We have defined two areas where we look to build a broader position, namely in IoT as well as security.
Now, transformation is also a key prominent focus in AMP, where we seek to revitalize key businesses and make selected investments supporting our core business. Key to this is to leverage the know-how outside the boundaries of Telenor, also with the use of partnerships to learn, adapt, and to share risk. When owners may be better suited to develop an asset, we will exit, as we've done with Telenor Satellite, Working Group 2, and most recently, Alente. In sum, in AMP, we have a focused growth approach and a strict portfolio management. The majority of AMP's customers are targeting B2B customers. As mentioned, a key focus for AMP is to build leading Nordic B2B service positions in IoT and the cybersecurity area. Now, let me share a few words on some of these key assets.
If you start from the upper left on the slide, Telenor Connection is the largest single contributor to AMP's EBITDA and free cash flow. Connection is the fifth largest operator in IoT in Europe and number 10 globally, with managed IoT connectivity serving international customers in over 200 countries. If you look on the right-hand side of this slide, we have KNL in Finland, which offers mission-critical services for defense. KNL provides proprietary and ultra-secure tactical defense communication solutions across long distances. This is a small but rapidly expanding niche with high barriers to entry. Now, this company recently signed a contract with both the Finnish and the Swedish defense forces and is a very scalable business with software-like margins.
Now, in a period with increased focus on defense cooperation, we believe it is very, very helpful to have dialogues with defense procurement officials in all of the Nordic countries. Finally, we have Telenor Cyber Defense, which was carved out from Telenor Norway last year, providing managed security and surveillance for business customers. All in all, while not our largest business areas, infrastructure and AMP remain key for us to ensure a resilient and innovative development of the group going forward. Now, let's get to the financial review and ambitions. Now, at my first quarterly presentation in February, I highlighted three priorities that were important to us. One was delivering on our promises for 2025. Two was our strong commitment to shareholder returns. Three was to manage capital for long-term value creation.
I'm pleased to report we're tracking well across all three parameters, and the latter two, shareholder remuneration, return, focus, are two extremely important fundaments as we move forward. While reported service revenue growth has declined over time due to structural changes in the portfolio, our current businesses have been growing nearly 3% per annum. This has been driven by an effective commercial strategy in the Nordics, a successful transition of copper to fiber in Norway, and a move towards a more resilient position in Asia with notably lower risk. Since 2020, we have seen steady growth in both service revenues and EBITDA. Now, as you can see from the first and second charts on the left behind me, service revenues and EBITDA growth averaged more than 3% in the period, driven by the Nordics.
The third chart shows group free cash flow, which is on track towards our around NOK 13 billion 2025 outlook. It is clear our Nordics business area is now our main cash flow engine as a result of the successful commercial and operational execution Sigvart touched on, combined with a tapering CapEx profile. As Sigvart said, free cash flow from the Nordics has more than doubled since 2022. Nordics is also the key driver on return on capital employed, growing from 7% to 11% over the last years, despite the large investments we made. You can see that at the chart on the right. As you can see, we've had an average ROCI at the group level of 12.3% since 2020. Note that in this number, there are some special accounting effects relating to True and CelcomDigi that have affected this group metric over time.
Now, as we said at our Q3 presentation, we have a group ROCI of 13.8% if you exclude our associated company, which at present doesn't contribute much on the numerator, but a lot on the denominator. This further highlights the potential to also improve ROCI over time with growth in the results from our associated companies. All business areas contributed positively to free cash flow in 2024 and 2025, led by the Nordics. The chart behind me shows free cash flows by business area on a gross basis, with corporate function, interest costs, and parent company taxes in the gray area below the X-axis. The red dotted line shows the net free cash flow level. As mentioned, this year, we expect that free cash flow before M&A will come in at around NOK 13 billion.
In Q3, we generated NOK 4.2 billion in free cash flow, which was up 50% year over year. Note that in Q4, we will receive close to NOK 0.6 billion in dividends from True post-withholding tax. Thank you, Nakool. A final catch-up dividend payment from Alente of around NOK 0.3 billion. We also expect positive working capital inflow. We have a return mindset at Telenor, with a key focus on how to expand ROCIs. As mentioned, our focus reaches across all levers, from top-line growth to OpEx and CapEx efficiencies, and to capital allocation-related levers. First, let's cover the internal perspective on capital allocation. We have invested a lot over the years. Investment and reinvestment will always continue in telecoms, but CapEx has started to taper. All investments we make will leverage on our existing strategic assets and be driven by incremental return perspectives.
On the inorganic side, we will always be looking for value-accretive acquisitions, value-driven partnerships, as well as value-creating divestment opportunities, resulting in portfolio simplification of the Telenor group over time. Next, let's turn to how we think about capital management by business area. In the Nordics, we're gradually shifting capital from network build-out to more service innovation and IT transformation, driving sustainable growth and higher returns. The key aim is here to leverage our existing world-class infrastructure by creating great services for our customers and by transitioning into a cloud-native stack and deploying AI, as we talked about earlier. We also see opportunities for value-accretive transactions in the region and have been very clear publicly on our view on the merits of in-market consolidation from four to three players. In Asia, our organic value creation focus is to drive long-term cash flows and dividends in cooperation with partners.
We're channeling capital prudently towards network development, IT transformation, and AI initiatives, as well as ensuring we have access to just the right amount and type of spectrum. As Jon Omund talked about, Grameenphone has had subdued CapEx below 9% of sales over the past year. Given the increasing data demand from its customers, we will need to dial up this a little bit to ensure a competitive data position in the market. Our telco assets in Asia are mostly financial, and we will manage them for long-term value maximization, cash flows, and dividends. At the same time, we have been clear that we will look to create further value by simplifying our portfolio to become more of a Nordic-centric company over the medium to long term. As I've just talked about, we will also have a very prudent and active capital allocation relating to infrastructure and AMP.
Turning to the external perspective on capital allocation, we're very proud of our 15-year track record of consistent growth in dividends, complemented by buybacks and special dividends when appropriate. Our commitment to our shareholders is clear. We remain focused on delivering strong, predictable cash returns and upholding our dividend policy, despite a certain decline in our asset base over time as we have simplified the group. We remain strongly committed to ensuring appropriately supported and growing cash returns to our shareholders over time. Telenor is in a solid financial position with long-term funding and well-diversified financing that provides stability, predictability, and flexibility. We have a split rating from the rating agencies with A- from S&P and BAA1 from Moody's, both with a stable outlook. As such, Telenor has very good access to the debt capital markets.
Our bond portfolio is well-balanced, and we have an average maturity of 4.8 years, which helps reduce refinancing risk. To maintain financial flexibility and reduce liquidity risk, we also have a EUR 1.8 billion multicurrency RCF in place. About 63% of our debt is fixed with an average interest rate of around 2.6%, and our overall interest rate is currently 2.7%. Over the past few years, our leverage ratio has moved within the target range of 1.8x-2.3 x, averaging towards the top end of the range. Occasionally, we've seen it tick above, mainly due to currency fluctuations as well as the timing of our biannual dividend payouts to shareholders. We remain committed to our target leverage range. That said, we do expect some quarter-to-quarter variation depending on market dynamics and timing of dividend payouts.
What is important to us is that we see a clear path back inside the range if we happen to be on the outside. Overall, we are in a strong and stable financial position, well-funded, well-diversified, and with the flexibility to navigate changing conditions supported by the growing high-quality cash flows from the Nordics. Looking ahead, our free cash flow ambitions relate only to the operating companies, excluding associates like CelcomDigi and True. As illustrated by the dotted element of the 2025 column on this chart, we expect NOK 2.5 billion from associates this year, including Alente. We see solid medium- to long-term dividend potential from our associates as their results improve, as illustrated by the arrow in this chart. As you know, CelcomDigi and True are large separately listed companies. While we exert significant influence through the respective boards, these are nevertheless non-controlled entities.
As such, we find it prudent to exclude dividends from these companies from our stated FCF ambitions. We do, however, expect that the two-player industry structure in Thailand, along with an ambitious transformation, will be supportive for the future results of True, which just announced its inaugural dividend. In Malaysia, CelcomDigi has paid consistent dividends. However, in Q3, we highlighted some of the potential risks related to the evolving 5G landscape in Malaysia and challenges related to the financial situation in CelcomDigi's associated 5G network company. Nevertheless, we expect transformation and progress on key pain points to underpin and unlock substantial mid to long-term dividend potential from these assets.
Looking at 2026 in the indicative chart here, while free cash flow builds on firm momentum into 2026 from the Nordics, it is balanced against important investments and short-term structural effects, such as the expected divestments of Pakistan and Alente. While we will provide our full 2026 outlook in connection with our Q4 results early next year, we do already foresee a mid-single-digit EBITDA growth in the Nordics in 2026. Note that incremental spectrum payments are excluded from our ambitions. As per long-standing Telenor policy, we do not comment on future spectrum spend. The reason for this is to avoid front-running our bidding strategy, which I am sure many authorities would love to hear, and generally high uncertainty in Asia within this area.
While we are strongly committed to covering our dividends over time, in 2026, this could potentially, and I only underline the word potentially, be qualified by uncertain external and structural factors, such as the dividends from non-controlling entities and the spectrum auctions, as well as mentioned exits. For the mid to long term, we see quite a few structural performance drivers for free cash flows for our controlled businesses. This goes especially for the Nordics, led by the service-led upselling and tapering OpEx. CapEx intensity in the Nordics should, as mentioned, also continue to fade as the network-heavy lifts are gradually completed. In Bangladesh, additional 4G investments will be balanced by macro recovery, leading to cash flow uplift in the country. Tax payments in the Nordics will increase from 2028, and the national roaming agreement we have with Elisa will taper off as they build out their own network.
Overall, we expect substantial improvements in group free cash flow, excluding associates over the medium to long term. On top of this, dividends from associates are expected to contribute meaningfully. For the mid to long term, more specifically, we have the following ambitions. If we start with the Nordics, in the Nordics, we're aiming for an organic service revenue growth in the low single-digit range through both 2028 and 2030. Organic EBITDA growth in the low to mid-single-digit range, supported by the declining OpEx of between 0% to -2% annually and the resultant operating leverage. We expect CapEx to sales to taper towards below 13% by 2028, with a further decline to 11%-12% by 2030. When we give a long-term outlook today, this is based on the current industrial visibility that we have.
With access rollouts in fiber and 5G heading towards the finish line, we do believe CapEx will taper, and we will take a prudent approach as we when we talked about new technologies. In case there would be attractive investment projects within areas we are unaware of today, of course, this outlook may change, but this, of course, would be subject to the same strict return parameters that we've talked extensively about. These are the best estimates we have today. At the group level, free cash flow, excluding associates, is expected to be around NOK 12 billion-NOK 13 billion for 2028, further reaching NOK 14 billion-NOK 15 billion by 2030. Dividends from associates would, as mentioned, come on top of this cash flow. Return on capital employed is projected to grow from 8.6% today to exceed 11% by 2028 and rise above 12% by 2030, reinforcing our focus on value creation.
On a side note, this ROCI figure does include our associated companies. And as mentioned earlier, ROCI, excluding associates, were more than five percentage points higher as per the third quarter this year. All in all, these ambitions underline our long-term strategy, steady growth, operational excellence, return-focused investments with an expanding return on capital as a result. With that, I'd like to hand over to Benedicte for her concluding remarks. Benedicte.
Thank you, Torbjørn, and thank you all for a good session. I'll be quick because I know we are heading, you know, a bit up against the time. To sum up our financial ambitions, we are quite ambitious about our value creation potential for shareholders over the next three to five years. The commitment to our financial policy, including dividends and a strong balance sheet, remains strong.
In addition, we have a firm commitment to dividend coverage over time. When I joined Telenor a year ago, I came to a high-performing organization that was well on the way to deliver on the ambitions we set three years ago. Now, 12 months later, we are here reporting back on good progress and good results. I hope that we've brought to life our evolved strategy to drive value creation for our shareholders over the next few years, starting with our customers, which ultimately drives company value to our shareholders, as illustrated on this slide. I personally feel a great enthusiasm about this strategy, and perhaps even more importantly, I'm so encouraged by what I see around in the organization. I see a Telenor group leadership that is even more united and focused on strategy and execution.
I see strong leadership teams in each and every business unit, and I see that they are better equipped to empower and enable their teams to deliver. I also see that we are all passionate about doing so. The simplification and tech and AI-driven transformation that we talk about here in the PowerPoint format is being implemented as we speak and accelerated across the organization. This gives me great confidence that many positive results are yet to be seen for Telenor. Finally, I'm confident that our evolved strategy will drive return on capital, free cash flows and dividends, as well as shareholder value overall. Thank you all, and we look forward to your questions.
Thank you, Benedicte. We are ready for the second Q&A round of the day. I will invite our colleagues back down here with us. Torbjørn, Group CFO, and Jon Omund, Head of Asia, back up here for the Q&A. Again, please limit yourself to one question, and we might have a chance to get back for your second one later. We will start today with the room. Before that, Operator, are you there?
Yes, thank you. As a reminder, when it is your turn, you will receive a prompt to be promoted as a panelist. Please accept, wait a moment, and once you have been introduced, you may unmute yourself, turn your video on, and ask your question.
Okay. While the queue is forming online, we will start here in the room. Please wait for the microphone before you go. I think the first question will be from Andrew Lee over there. Thank you. Yeah, thanks very much. The question was on the Asia portfolio simplification.
That's something that I know you guys have been thinking about for some time and have always said it's not easy. It's not a simple thing to do, and it remains a kind of medium to long-term plan. The question is kind of, has the setup changed, do you think, that will make it easier for you to kind of exit some of the Asian assets or simplify your portfolio over the next couple of years? What has changed that gives you the confidence that you can actually achieve this? Thank you.
You want to go or Jon Omund?
I think Jon Omund is eager to answer.
Thank you. Good question. When we say we have simplified, we have moved from a number of assets where we have operational control and also the responsibilities that come with it to now associated companies for the largest entities where we basically own shares in a listed company in a market. That, you know, is a very different situation related to potential changes of ownership, if you put it that way. From that perspective, it is restructured and simplified with respect to how we move forward.
I also think it's worth mentioning that the value creation is also more visible with, you know, all our assets being listed. As we said in the presentation, if there are sensible things to do that would increase the value of these assets, we will certainly have a very close look at it.
Okay, good. I think the next question is from Nick Lyall. Nick? Running with the microphone.
Hi, there. Sorry, Nick again from Berenberg. Just to Andrew's point as well on Asia, could you come back to how you actually decide on the value of the assets? You've clearly mentioned the dividend growth, but return on capitals are negative. You could be an unlevered, you know, Nordic operation instead. How are you actually assessing when's the right time to look at the Asian assets and why?
If you remember one of the first slides Jon Omund had, you know, the value of our shares that are listed have increased by around NOK 11 billion to 27%. Yeah, 27%, but to close to NOK 90 billion, right? At least there is a visibility of the increased value of the assets. That's the main, you know, data that we use when we value our assets. You know, I guess there is no better measure for a listed share, right?
If I could just tag on real quick, I mean, what we have said is that we want to be active owners, and within that also means looking at structural opportunities. That means that, you know, we will look at structural opportunities that we feel are value enhancing to Telenor. Aside from that, we have said also that, you know, these types of structural deals take a lot of time. You know, the mergers in Asia took three to four years to complete. That is why we will continue to work to drive value as an active owner and then look at structural opportunities and then be more than happy to come back and share news with the market as and when we have something to report.
Okay, I think the next question is from Ondrej from UBS.
Hi, thanks again. I have a question on free cash flow. This time around, you're not guiding for free cash flow, including associates. I was wondering why the decision, and then if you can give maybe, or is that an indication of something, you know, in terms of how core or not these assets are to you, it's just not enough visibility for you to put the numbers out there. And then associated with free cash flow, if you can just give us maybe a bit of color below the EBITDA and CapEx numbers, because obviously you've mentioned, for example, the Bangladesh spectrum auction, some of the stuff around the 5G, JV in Malaysia, etc. Of the more regular items, what could be, you know, the reason that, you know, guidance could be maybe, or might seem slightly conservative given the guidance on EBITDA and CapEx? Thank you.
Yeah, please.
Yeah, okay. We have made a decision to only guide for our control companies. As mentioned in the presentation, you know, the two associated companies in Asia are separately listed companies that, you know, we do not control. Of course, they, of course, need to give their own guidance. You know, the forecasting of cash flows in the previous period was also for a period when there was, you know, mergers that had some clear financial ambitions to come out, but it is impossible for me or us to predict the dividends. For example, you know, True has announced now the interim dividend of 125% of profit. You know, we have no control as to what percentage of future profits they will guide. Hence, we think it is prudent for us to only guide on the parameters we control where we have a real influence on the outcome. Now, as far as, you know, things below CapEx, as you know, we tend not to go into specific entities. We have said we will dial up CapEx a little bit in Grameenphone due to the Voice to Data transition.
It remains to be seen what the resolution is with respect to the 5G JV in Malaysia, but that is, of course, something that Jon Omund and his team are following up very closely.
Okay, thank you. I think the next question comes from Jørgen at Pareto at the fourth row. Yeah.
Thank you so much for the presentation and for taking my question. My question would be, when you keep leverage guidance and also intend to increase dividends over time, while also stating that the investments in Asia are a bit, you know, you can't say for sure when it's going to be. How would you, if there would be consolidation opportunities in the Nordics, how would you finance that? Would you reassess your leverage targets or are you looking at share payments or, you know, any comments would be helpful? Thanks.
Yeah, I think you're going into areas that become quite into the hypothetical, you know, what to do if we divest, you know, how to fund if we buy. Those are, of course, all important considerations that we would look at in those hypothetical scenarios. You know, what we are clear on is that we are, you know, we have to maintain a strong balance sheet. That, of course, provides some constraining parameters. How we finance, how we structure any potential deals is something we will look at on a case-by-case basis and come back to if and when we have something to say. I'd rather not speculate on the various permutations there.
Okay, and then we have Christoffer Bjørnsen.
Thank you. So Christoffer from DNB Carnegie. On the CapEx outlook, you're kind of guiding for a material step down in the longer term. Before, like when we exit 2028, can you just give some thoughts on where we would be on, like, the upgrade of all the networks in the Nordics to standard on 5G, where you'll be on fiber penetration, and then finally, any remaining work that needs to be done on swapping out Chinese equipment, both in the wireless and the fixed networks, and in particular on the standard on 5G, if that's included in the CapEx towards 2028 to have fully transitioned to standard on by 2028, that would be helpful. Three bullets there.
When it comes to the standard on network, I think I showed it also on one of my slides. It's, you know, we have a, you know, between 90%-99% coverage, and we have a 5G coverage also up in, you know, 80+% across the Nordics.
We are now in our final phase of 5G Standalone available, you know, making that available and anticipate that to be operational or, you know, possible to put into customer transactions, you know, in the coming year. Kind of getting there as we speak. That is also the reason why the CapEx is tapering over time when we have kind of reached the peak of our 5G investments and we see that we can, that our CapEx to sales will be reduced somewhat. Remember, we come from a level of 19% CapEx to sales back in 2022, and now we are guiding on, you know, around 14% this year and then going further down in the years to come. You also asked about the Chinese vendor situation in Finland, right? Which has been, you know, somewhat in the news. There is an ongoing discussion in Finland.
The question is whether RAN equipment will be defined as critical infrastructure or not. We do not see there is a big change. We follow it very, very closely, of course, but we do not anticipate that to be a big change and big impact on Telenor short term. There is also an anticipation in Finland that if the regulator or the authorities decide a mandatory swap out of Chinese equipment, that there also will be some financing from the Finnish authorities if that happens. Sorry?
Fiber? Fiber on, when will you be at the end of 2028?
Christoffer, we have not quantified that in the Nordics as such, but you are welcome to participate on the breakout session on Nordic fixed markets later today.
Details on all the countries in the breakout session, actually.
We need to move on in the Q&A. Thank you for that question. We think we'll go to Daniel Ljubak of Handelsbanken, seated next to Christoffer there in one row further down.
Yeah, thank you, Frank. I have a tech question. Surprise, surprise. That would be on the 5G Standalone that you mentioned you will be deploying here in the 2026 timeframe. Is it for the full of Nordic or mainly in Norway? Also, if you can talk about the opportunities to see and to monetize this, i.e., you know, dynamic network slicing, whatever, what you've learned so far, what you've seen from Elisa, for example, in Finland or Reliance Jio in India. Thanks.
We anticipate to have 5G Standalone available in all the four Nordic countries .
During 2026.
During 2026, thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Can you say anything about the monetization and what you expect to see from this in terms of growth, you know, if you can have?
We have not, you know, elaborated in any detail on that, but it is within, it is in our financial ambition.
Next question is from Felix from Nordea to Rose Dan.
Thanks for taking my question. It is on Malaysia. Is there anything that you can do yourself to offset some of the adverse impacts from the suboptimal 5G network situation and DNB's difficulties? As a follow-up, does the prevailing, you know, structurally challenged 5G network situation impact your desire to stay in the market? Thanks .
Yeah, thanks. What we are doing from Telenor's side is to work with partners in Malaysia, both our partner in the ownership of CelcomDigi, but also broader to guide and be part of the discussions to restructure and find solutions for DNB medium to long term going forward. We believe we have adequate and good competence related to what is needed to be done up and beyond the spectrum discussions that are ongoing with the government. We are engaging on a quite active basis.
The sort of impact on your desire to stay in the market against that backdrop?
For now, we are focused on creating solutions to the situation and structural changes we will take as and if they come.
Thank you. The next question comes from Øystein from ABG.
Yes, thank you. Øystein Lodgaard from ABG. One on OpEx growth in the Nordics. You guide for 0% to -2% annual OpEx growth in the Nordics. Over the last couple of years, much of your EBITDA growth has come from price increases or giving more for more, as you say. If that is difficult to maintain, that kind of price increase momentum, do you think there is potential to do more on costs so that costs can contribute a larger part of that EBITDA growth that you are guiding for?
You are absolutely right. You know, a lot of the performance has come from, you know, a successful commercial strategy driving the top line, but I probably have a slightly different perspective on the cost side.
We've had a very ambitious agenda on the cost side also historically, and I think the, as I like to put it, a bit tabloid, the combination of top line growth, continuing with lowering OpEx and falling CapEx is, of course, a strong contributor to the overall cash flows. This effort will definitely continue also through the, call it the time horizon that we highlighted on the stage there, you know, and as we said, 0% to -2%, you know, in the period up to 2028, and you know, that will continue beyond 2028. I think it's important to keep in mind that when we're talking about 0% to -2%, that is a net decline in total OpEx. That means that not only have we absorbed the inflationary pressures, but we've also managed down the cost base.
And of course, you know, the more and more sort of low hanging fruits you take off, the harder it gets, but given our transformation muscle, we're confident that we will deliver on this trajectory going forward, and this will be equally important in the future as it has been in the past.
Okay. With that, I think we'll need to come back to any potential further questions from the room and give the participants online a chance to ask their questions. Operator, are you there?
Yes, our first question will come from Ajay Soni at JP Morgan. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.
Thanks for taking the question. My question is just around the dividends. Last few years, these have grown around about 1%. I think if you look at your free cash flow growth ex associates, that's guided to mid-single digits. I think when you add on the associate dividends on top of that, I think, you know, free cash flow is growing mid to high single digits. Can your dividends grow in line with this free cash flow growth that you kind of guided to today? One quick question on the 2026 free cash flow, just to confirm, did you say that these may not cover the dividends for 2026? I just maybe missed that. Thank you.
Brief answer to your first question on dividend growth going forward. This is, of course, a matter that our board, you know, will consider when we come to look at dividend declarations. I am not going to stand here and give any guidance or manage expectations on the future dividends other than to say that we are strongly committed to it.
As far as the 2026 is concerned, we've said that, you know, there are some things that could potentially impact the coverage in 2026, and I think we've been highlighted enough through the presentation about what they are, including, you know, dialing up investments, some of the structural things going away, as well as some of the headwinds in Asia. You know, for us, we have, as we like to say in Norway, quite low shoulders on this because, you know, our dividends are very covered, you know, very strongly supported by strong growing Nordic cash flows. You know, to the extent you have minor bumps in the road, that it doesn't give us a rise for concern, you know, also from a leverage perspective.
Okay, next question.
The next question is from Ulrich Rathe at Bernstein. Please unmute yourself and then give your question.
Yeah, thanks very much. If I think about Telenor capital markets back really pretty much all the way back to 2004, capital sales has practically always been guided down, right? I think the highlight was a CTO standing up and saying Asian capital sale can be below 10%. What is structurally different this time? I think you mentioned one thing in your presentation, which is the softwarization of the equipment and that this means some of the costs will move from CapEx into OpEx. Then you essentially guide for continued OpEx declines on a net basis, as you highlighted just now. I'm just wondering how this all fits together. It really does sound like an extremely ambitious goal compared to what has been delivered in the past on CapEx. If it is really the software bit, then I don't quite understand the OpEx guidance.
Could you just elaborate on that a little bit? Thank you.
Yeah. I can do the CapEx to sales bit. You know, thank you for stating that it's ambitious. I think, you know, we feel that we have to get up early every day in order to deliver on our ambitions. But we're very confident that, you know, from what we now know about, you know, where we are on the 5G development, what risk capacity we have, you know, can deliver on that equipment and our 5G Standalone rollout and our, I was about to say fortification, but you know, our, you know, building, you know, further resilience. We are pretty confident that the levels that we are now guiding you should be achievable and, you know, a prudent and good quality development of the CapEx levels of Telenor going forward.
You also had something on the OpEx side, right?
Maybe just also to cover, as we made clear in the presentation, you know, we do believe that there is a long runway of features that can be introduced based on the 5G infrastructure we have today. You know, as we commented, we applaud the innovation discussions, but we are going to take a very prudent approach to this. We anticipate, based on what we understand, that a lot of this will be software related. I would like to add that, you know, we do have also now things such as the more focus on centralized procurement, the procurement cooperation with Vodafone, which of course are important contributors to lowering the cost of equipment going forward.
Okay, the heavy lifting has essentially been done. We'll take the next question from the line, please, Operator.
There are no further questions.
Okay, then we have a question registered from Jeremy from New Street. We're seated over here in the front row. Second row.
Sorry, yeah, it's just a clarification on the Asian dividends. I think you said you had no control over those dividends going forward. Can you just clarify on that? I'm presuming you have some influence through your boards on that. Is there any risk that those are withheld to try and force yourselves out of those markets? I mean, Malaysia being an example with Axiata, who I think at some point might wish to reconsolidate. On the dividends, if those you've suggested that they should be covered but might not be covered in 2026. Then beyond that, if spectrum in Bangladesh is high, as some news reports have said that the government is looking for significant funds from those, could that be the case for more than one year? Would you continue to support the dividends through your balance sheet if that was the case?
The first, you know, the level of control. Of course, I mean, we are active owners. We have around 30% ownership of these. I'm sorry for calling it non-controlled assets, but as a matter of fact, they are. We are, you know, on committees, on boards, and we supply with competence and people and technology. I mean, yes, we do influence and we have an active ownership approach to these assets. However, because they're listed, they have, you know, boards with also, you know, partner representatives and independent representatives.
We are not in that, you know, in that position alone. They are also, they are listed with stock exchange obligations, which means that if we guide or try to guide, you know, on those companies, we will be violating either stock exchange regulations or, you know, to the extent that we're insiders. It is just a matter of complication. To make it smooth and transparent and predictable and, you know, where we actually have a true line of sight, that is why we have decided to do it this way. It is as simple as that. That does not exclude the fact that we are expecting, you know, meaningful dividends from these companies and we are positive about the outlooks for the companies as such.
I think just to add, it is, you know, these are very much aligned with our partners in those two entities. Just a quick comment on the spectrum side. We have, I would claim, the best spectrum team on the street, humbly said. The reason why I'm highlighting it is we are not known to buy spectrum, excessive amounts of spectrum or paying more than we have to. Clearly, our spectrum resources will be heavily engaged in terms of looking at spectrum renewals, including how much we need of the various spectrum bands. As we made clear, this might prove, you know, some short-term headwinds on cash flow. Again, we do anticipate that Bangladesh, after a period slump due to the political uncertainty, will recover as a result of the elections scheduled for February next year, I believe. Combined with that, that does not give us, give rise to concern that this is something that's going to hamper us in the long-term picture.
Thank you to everyone for that. I think that really concludes our Q&A session. It is now time for a break. For investors and analysts, you have signed up for lunch at the sixth floor in the Norway lounge, which will take place from now until 12:30. Please get moving and we will see you up there. After that, there will be breakout sessions on the fourth floor. Fourth floor for the breakouts from 12:30. Thank you very much for all coming and we will see you for lunch and breakouts. Thank you.