Well, good morning to all of you, and welcome to another quarter. We got a solid start in 2016, despite very competitive pressure still in two of our Asian markets, Malaysia and Thailand. We added 5.4 million new subs, and totally, we now have 208 million. Most of these new subs in this quarter came from India and Pakistan, and also Myanmar. We have a 6% growth in subscriber and traffic revenues. Again, this comes from Myanmar, and for this quarter, a positive surprise is also the growth we see in Bangladesh. We have a 5% EBITDA growth in this quarter. That's better than what I expected when the quarter started.
However, we are still on a journey on transformational journey to address more structural costs. So we are not happy with the cost development, and there is more to come. We have an operating cash flow of NOK 6.1 million, despite high investment, and that's about the same level as we had a year ago. I'm going to spend two slides on our biggest market this time, Norway, starting with the revenues. I have called this a mixed revenue trend in Norway. The mobile revenues are down 3%, but that is coming from lower handset sale. It's coming from an effect on interconnection, and also the loss of the national wholesale revenues from that started from April in last year.
The underlying growth is 1% growth on subscriber and traffic revenues, and we have to bear in mind that that is compared with a 7%-8% growth in the same quarter last year. So we are up against an impressive growth in 2015. However, I think there is a potential for an increased growth in the Norwegian market, and I'm happy to see that the Norwegian management have now launched new tariff plans, and you saw that being presented yesterday. Where we are taking a position of including free roaming in Europe, in the EU area, into the data buckets, free MMS, and also, we have included the storage service Capture.
Still, the data usage with our Norwegian customers are relatively low, around 600 MB per customer, compared with a much higher consumption in Sweden. So we think there is a potential now with the new tariff plans to continue the upsell logic that have given us revenue growth in the last two years. In the fixed segments, we see the fixed telephony loss in line with earlier trend, and we have added 64,000 high-speed customers compared with where we were a year ago. We are still struggling a bit on fixed broadband. Our ambition, as we have stated in several quarters, is to stabilize the market share loss, and we are increasing the rollout and we are increasing the focus through a cluster model, but we are still not there.
Norway delivered a 44% EBITDA margin in this quarter. That's up two percentage points compared with where we were a year ago. That I really wanna call solid, and this is despite lower roaming revenues, despite also the loss of the wholesale revenue deal that I, that I described. And it is because we are able to use the upsell logic for the packages and also an active pre to post-migration. Norway is working on several long-term structural initiatives, and the objective here is to create a single fixed value chain that is access independent.
The focus is then on automate, automating processes, is to simplify architecture, is to simplify the product portfolio, and is to use the digitalization as a tool when it comes to reducing costs, both in the IT stack and also in the customer interactions. As we told the investors last year, and that's the chart on the right, we are on track in terms of the efficiency programs. The ambition is to be net positive from these initiatives during 2017. Sweden, we are continuing the growth in Sweden at 2% mobile subscription and traffic growth, and we see positive trends in the consumer segment. We have been able to grow the ARPU with 4% in the consumer segment.
However, there is a tough price competition on the business segment, and we have seen in the quarter that they had a reduction of 8% in the business segment. The total revenues are down 5%, and as in Norway, this is mostly due to lower handset sale in the quarter. We see a high fiber demand in Sweden. We have a solid position now in the multi-dwelling segment with 470,000 customers, and we are ramping up our activities in the single-dwelling household segment. The aim is to cover additionally 500,000 households within the coming four or five years, which will bring us up to a subscriber base of 2 million households in this segment. In the rest of Europe, the market conditions in Denmark continue to be very challenging.
We see some improved headline prices in the industry. However, the aggressive below-the-line prices continues. We have launched a new business support system in Denmark. We did that in this quarter. That has been in the planning for the last two years. It's a business support system we have developed together with a Chinese vendor, and the aim here is to simplify the IT stack and also have a one-screen logic with our customers that, regardless of which device they are using or which access they are using to our system. The plan now is to take this forward into several others of our European markets. Hungary first, then Bulgaria, and then we will move into some of the other European markets, and then to trying to build some scale to a common IT system.
However, the profitability in the Danish market continued to be weak, and as we have said before, there is a need for a consolidation in this market to maintain or to create a long-term profitability. In the Central Eastern Europe operations, we see the trend continues, nothing dramatic there. We see healthy margins continues also, and we see that relatively we are able to keep our market share positions in all those markets. Thailand, very intense competition, as we have seen, the last now almost two years. It continues, and especially now on the both AIS and TrueMove are moving into even more aggressive prepaid subsidies to capture customers. As you know, dtac has lost market share, revenue market share over the last two years.
And because of this, we have been working with turning around some of our operation. We have more aggressively now built out our data network. We have revamped the distribution, and we have also implemented a cluster model, as we have been successfully using in some of the other Asian markets. And fortunately, we see now that the market share loss has been adjusted in both Q3 and Q4, and we estimate also in the first quarter a flat market share development. As we have stated, the 2016 ambition is to keep and defend the market share that we are having. And it's good to see then that we have been able, in this quarter, to add more than 400,000 net new subscribers.
The EBITDA margin is improved, mostly because of low handset sale in this market also in the first quarter, but also because we have chosen not to subsidize prepaid handsets in this quarter different from what our competitors have done. However, we don't think we can continue to do that. So in this quarter, we may also have to use some of the same tools to stay competitive. We have also initiated several structural initiatives to address the cost base in dtac, but you cannot see that coming through in this quarter. That will be more a long-term initiative. The data network has been significantly improved. We now have a 94% population coverage on 3G.
We are aggressively rolling out 4G, and we have 4G now in all the 77 provinces, but there is still a way to go before the entire population is covered with 4G network. As you know, Jasmine was not able or willing to pay the 900 spectrum that they won in the last auction. That is now returned back to the regulator and will come out again in an auction 27th of May. The starting price for that seems to be the same as the result in the last auction, THB 75 billion, and because of that, dtac has already announced that we do not intend to participate in this auction.
And if, as described in the slide, we think that we have a good spectrum portfolio, that is not forcing us to participate this time, but rather look for future auctions, especially in 2018, when our 1800 and 850 spectrum or license concession is coming out in an auction. Malaysia, also very tough market condition, and they seem to continue, especially in the migrant segment, where we see now that the prices are dropping quite significantly, and we also have an effect of weak currency impacting the cost of international calls. We also see in the market that more and more data is bundled into the data packages, and we also see that some of our competitors are having free internet for social media use. Digi continues to be good at execution.
I think we have seen that demonstrated over many years. So despite the very tough prices and also the reaction from our competitors, Digi is keeping its market share. They did so last year, and we estimate that they will do that in this quarter as well, also in the Q1 as well. They have also repositioned their brand from being mainly a prepaid operator to now also being more attractive for the postpaid segment. And we see the result of that coming out with a quite impressive 7% organic growth in the postpaid segment. Digi is continuing its leadership on data, having now a 3G network that covers 88% of the population and an LTE coverage of 73% of the population.
As you also know, there was a refarming of the 900 spectrum, which will give Digi another 5 MHz 900 spectrum, which will greatly help when it comes to rural coverage and also indoor coverage. Bangladesh, as I said in the beginning, a very positive surprise, I will say, in this quarter. Revenue, organic revenue growth of 12% on subscriber and traffic revenues. ARPU, it's slightly increased in the quarter. And as I said before, we are now seeing early signs on ability to monetize data in these emerging markets, and Bangladesh is a visible sign of that. Give you some numbers to back up the data growth. We now have 80% 3G network population coverage.
By June, we will put 3G equipment on all our 2G base stations, which will bring us up to a 95% 3G coverage, population-wise. 36% of our customers are now active data users. We see the smartphone penetration now increases, and it has increased from 20% to 23% in this quarter. We see now the prices for smartphone dropping quite significantly, and we assume that in the end of this year, we will be down to levels where the mass market can really afford picking up smartphone devices. In the midst of this, Bangladesh, Grameenphone has also started to implement the biometric verification system, where basically all the customers, not only the new registered, but also existing customers, need to go to our sales points and re-verify their identity with the fingerprints.
We are half through that process. 55% of our customers are now verified. Pakistan, also, a good at revenue growth, 2% organic, added 2.2 million new subscribers. Lots of the revenues are coming from growth in incoming international traffic, but also from the position we have built on financial services. 11% of the growth, and, sorry, 11% of the revenues is now coming from financial services. In the quarter, we increased our shareholding in Tameer Bank from 51% to 100%. So we are now fully controlling that bank. And with that, we are now launching more advanced balance sheet products, like saving products for our customers, like handset financing, like micro loan, but also e-commerce solutions.
And we now see that this is a position we take not only with our own customers, but also offer that to the market, as the whole market. Healthy EBITDA margin, 40%, and with that we see a healthy and profitable growth. Myanmar, I think I have said many quarters now that this cannot continue, but it does. And now after one and a half years into operation, we launched our operation in October 2014. They are not only keeping the EBITDA margin, actually increasing it slightly, 42%, but they are now cash flow positive for the first time. And I must really say that that's impressive, one and a half years into the operation, and not only slightly positive, but actually having a margin of 10%.
And despite the aggressive rollout, I expect them to be able to stay in the positive territory on cash flow in the quarters to come. They added 1.8 million new subscribers in this quarter, bringing the total number up to 15 million, a little bit more than 15 million. We do not have 100% factual data on this, but we assume that we are around 38%-39% market share now on subscribers. And as said before, still our subscribers are continuing to use data. 52% of them are now using data. The key strength, I will say, we have developed in this market is, one, network.
We rolled out 800 new sites in the first quarter, and now have together 5,000 sites, covering 62% of the population and 90% of the townships. The aim is to bring that 5,000 sites up to 9,000 sites, and then we will basically cover the whole population. The other strength, it's our focus on distribution. We now have 68,000 point of sales, and we are way ahead of our competitors on the presence, sales presence out in the rural market. And thirdly, it's the brand position we have. We are by far the market leader in terms of brand preference in the market. India had a good quarter, added 1.5 million new subscribers, bringing that up to 44 million, totally. That was a 15% subscriber growth year-on-year.
Also, despite pressure on data now replacing voice revenues, they were able to grow revenues with 7%. However, the ARPU is under pressure, so the ARPU is down 7% year-over-year. Revenue market share, it's 6.5% in the 6 circles where we operate. It's higher in the two bigger circles, UP East and UP West, but overall 6.5%, which brings us up to a number 4 position in those 6 circles where we operate. Where, of course, the three big ones are way ahead, but we have a now clear number 4 position. But as communicated before, the long-term presence in India is dependent on our ability to secure additional spectrum.
We are not, with the current spectrum portfolio we have, able to compete in the growing data market. And we need to find a solution, and pay a price that we can justify. That's why we are looking at the upcoming auction. That's why we are looking at potential spectrum trading opportunities. But we have also said that we need to be pragmatic to consider also other alternatives, if that turns out not to be possible to find value focused solutions on it. Before I hand over to Morten, we are inviting you to our Capital Markets Day in September. We haven't done that for the last two years, and I think it's time to do so.
We plan to do that in London, and we plan then to present the strategy, the digital strategy, that we are now in the midst of starting a transformational journey on. We plan also to be clear on our financial priorities and ambitions in the coming years, especially give you a little bit more guidance on where we see the OpEx development going, and also give you a guiding on CapEx in the years to come. And we will, of course, also use this opportunity to update on our key markets. So that's the highlight I would like to give you, and then I hand over to Morten.
Thank you, Sigve. Before I go into the details on the Q1 results, let me quickly touch upon the highlights from the first quarter. Like Sigve said, I believe Telenor has delivered a solid Q1, despite competitive pressures in some of our key markets. We delivered a solid 6% organic growth in mobile subscription and traffic revenues, and continuing the momentum from previous quarters. EBITDA margin was improving by 1 percentage point to 35%, and growth in EBITDA was 5% on an organic basis. Despite high investments, the operating cash flow was NOK 6.1 billion, one of the highest ever. We are maintaining the outlook for the year, and I will get back to the outlook in more detail later in the presentation.
If we move into the details for the quarter, starting with the revenues. Reported revenues for the first quarter was NOK 33 billion. That is an increase of 5% from the same quarter, 2015. We still see positive currency effects from the weakening of the Norwegian kroner, explaining NOK 1 billion of the group's NOK 1.6 billion growth in revenues. If we then adjust for currency, the organic revenue growth was 1.5%. And as you can see from the graph on the right side, the mobile subscription and traffic revenues are growing at a healthy rate of 5.8% organic, supported by solid trends in Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Most of the deviation between subs and traffic revenues and the growth in that with the total organic revenue growth is explained by lower handset sales in the quarter. That's two percentage points, and a fixed line decline of one percentage point. It's important to understand that Q1 2015 was a very strong quarter when it comes to the device sales in most of our markets due to the launch of new handsets at that particular point in time.... Moving to the EBITDA. EBITDA increased by 8% on the reported figures compared to the first quarter 2015, and adjusted for currency, the organic EBITDA growth was 5%.
The key contributors to the group growth in EBITDA was again Myanmar, with NOK 0.6 billion, and in addition, Grameenphone added NOK 0.3 billion, both showing solid operational trends. The broadcast division also contributes positively this quarter. This is mostly explained by a positive one-time item of approximately NOK 200 million related to a settlement in Belgium. On the negative side, Digi has a negative contribution of approximately NOK 0.3 billion, primarily coming from the continued margin pressure on international traffic mentioned by Sigve earlier. The EBITDA margin for the quarter was 35%, and that is an improvement of 1 percentage point versus the same quarter last year. And as you can see, the margin improvement you will see that later.
The margin improvement is primarily explained by a higher gross margin. If we move on and give a few comments on our investments. Like we said, when we gave our CapEx outlook for 2016, we are in a phase of heavy investments to improve our 3G and 4G coverage. CapEx was NOK 5.5 billion in the quarter, implying a CapEx to sales ratio of 17%. The CapEx this quarter is NOK 0.9 billion, higher than the comparable quarter in 2015. And it's worthwhile noticing that two-thirds of our investments are currently going into our Asian operations. Especially our Asian operations in Bangladesh and Thailand have made significant network investments in Q1. In Norway, we also invested heavily, as we have done for a significant period now.
We invested NOK 0.9 billion to maintain our premium position, both in mobile and fixed networks. If we look into the group's operating cash flow of NOK 6.1 billion in the quarter, that is stable, with the same quarter last year. But as we said in the introduction, this is one of our best quarters ever when it comes to cash flow generation. And as you can see from the graph on the right, we deliver a NOK 2.1 billion gross profit increase, which is offsetting higher CapEx, primarily in Thailand, Bangladesh, and India, and increased investments, which I just covered.
And when it comes to CapEx, we clearly see that we are in a high investment phase right now, and we aim to give more color on the midterm CapEx profile at the Capital Markets Day, as mentioned, in September. There are some significant one-time items in this quarter, and these have a total positive effect of NOK 699 million on the net income. And I will just very briefly take you through these items. As we have previously disclosed in connection with the decision to divest our shares in VimpelCom, we will adjust the market price or the book value of the VimpelCom shares according to the market price at the close of each quarter.
This quarter, that gave a reversal of impairment taken in Q4, and the reversal accounts to 4.4 billion NOK, reflecting a share price at the end of the quarter of the VimpelCom share of $4.26. As a consequence of the recent development in observed spectrum trading prices and updated estimates of contractual obligations, we have recognized an impairment loss amounting to 2.9 billion NOK for India. When you allocate this according to the accounting rules, you will find 2.3 billion NOK as an impairment and a write-down of interest-bearing debt of 0.6 billion NOK, but in total, an adjustment of the value of the Indian operation by 2.9 billion NOK.
We have also made an impairment loss in connection with the sales of the shares in A media earlier reported. Finally, in the first quarter, we have also recognized a currency loss of NOK 577 million, mainly related to a partial payment of a loan to Telenor Denmark, which was considered as part of a net investment in Denmark. And this is now transferred back to the profit and loss, while the changes in the hedging has earlier been recognized through other comprehensive income. Then to the normalized net income of NOK 3.6 billion. The reported net income for the first quarter is impacted by the one-time items, which I just went through.
Adjusted for these effects and other some other non-recurring items, the normalized net income in Q1 is NOK 3.6 billion, implying a normalized EPS of around NOK 2.40. If we look into the debt and net debt position, as you can see from the graph on this slide, the group continues to be in a very solid financial position, and well below our net debt to EBITDA ceiling at 2x net debt to EBITDA. Net debt excluding license commitments decreased this quarter by NOK 0.5 billion Norwegian kroners, and net debt to EBITDA remains stable at 1.2.
The main special items in the net debt development in this quarter are the investments in ad tech, Tapad, as well as the installment on the license in Myanmar. As you may recall, the total license fee for Myanmar was $500 million, and we have now paid the last installment of $125 million. Apart from these items, the rest of the net debt reconciliation should be fairly straightforward. Just one additional comment, and that is on the currency effects. There is a effect from currency gain and translation effect, excluding license fees of NOK 1.95 billion, which is netted with the currency on placements, taking the figure down to NOK 1.6 billion. Then to the outlook.
So this is the full year guidance, which is based on the group structure as of 21st of March this year. As reflected in the presentation today, we have had a solid start to the year. However, it is still early in the year, and the competition remains intense in some of our key markets, in particular, Thailand and Malaysia. Based on this, we maintain our outlook for the year, which means an organic revenue growth of 2%-4%, EBITDA margin of 33%-34%, and CapEx to sales ratio of 17%-19%, excluding spectrum licenses. Few comments to the revenue outlook.
As stated, we have tough comparables in the first quarter, especially due to the strong handset sales at the beginning of last year, and we expect growth to improve throughout this year. When it comes to the EBITDA margin, as it looks now, we are likely to end up in the higher end of the range. Our ambition is to do better than this, but this requires more visibility in development in key areas and key markets, and also on the progress on the cost efficiency initiatives before we do any change to the guiding. So, this are the two main reflections on our statement, and that we maintain the guidance given earlier this year. That concludes my walkthrough, and I will then invite Sigve back for Q&As.
Thank you, Morten and Sigve. We will start with a Q and Q&A here from the audience. Could I remind you, please-
Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad.
Thanks. Fredrik Thoresen with SEB. Can you provide some more in, more color on the reasoning behind the impairment and write-down of the assets in India on the back of the recent spectrum transaction? It appears that you consider exit costs of around NOK 3.5 billion... and on Norway, you mentioned that you expect to be able to improve mobile services growth rate with the new price plan. Can you also provide some details as to the NOK 1 billion you have had, yeah, 2015 in international roaming revenues from your main brand?
Yeah, I can, I can start with Norway, and then you can take India, Morten. Yes, I think you are right, that there is around NOK 1 billion in roaming revenues for Norway. About half of that come from the EU area, another half from the rest of the world. So what we are talking about here is around NOK 500 million. That what we expect to do here is that the new packages, which if you look into them, are slightly more expensive for the consumers, but also we are filling them with more content. And we expect that when we are able then to up-sell our our current customers to these new packages, that some of that will be more than compensating for that potential NOK 500 million.
In addition to that, of course, not everyone will migrate up to those new packages, but will stay on their current package that they have, and for those customers, the free roaming will then not be offered. So on balance, we expect that this will be a positive contributor both to the profitability, but also to an increased revenue growth. And in addition to that, as I said, still the average data usage for our Norwegian customers is relatively low, around 500-600 MB. And we also hope now that not only we'll be able to upgrade to these new packages, that we also will, with those new packages, be able to increase the overall data usage, which again will have a positive effect on the top line.
On India, as you probably have seen, there have been some movements when it comes to consolidation initiatives and spectrum trading this year. There have been several transactions on spectrum trading. The first one was the announcement of the deal between Videocon and Idea, which later was canceled. Subsequent to that, the Videocon spectrum were entirely sold to Bharti Airtel. So that's one transaction. Further, you have Aircel selling spectrum in 2.3 megahertz band in 8 circles, I think, also to Bharti. You have seen consolidation, at least, I wouldn't say it concluded, but discussions announced between Aircel and RCom.
Reflecting on the consequences of this, we have found it prudent to make the impairment.
Thank you, Morten. Any further questions from the audience? Then the last round, please.
Thanks. Niklas Heiberg from DNB. Just a few quick questions to follow up on India. Could you comment on the price paid, price levels paid in India for the spectrum transactions you've seen? How does that compare to what you deem prudent and pragmatic in terms of further investments and buying spectrum in India? Secondly, in terms of the upcoming auction in India, it seems like TRAI's initial suggestion was for 2.3 gigahertz to be sold in 20 megahertz blocks. You've suggested that this be amended to 10 megahertz blocks, which could suggest that you have some interest in 2.3 gigahertz of spectrum there. Could you comment on what kind of CapEx we would have to see if you were to roll out 4G on 2.3 gigahertz in India?
Finally, in terms of the Tapad acquisition, could you explain to us the reasoning behind this and why you needed to buy the company as opposed to just buying services from the company? Thank you.
I think on India, you had a lot of ifs, and, and I don't think I can answer all those questions other than saying that, all those transactions that Morten mentioned, none of them have been improved yet. So we are yet to see if the spectrum trading potentials is going to happen in practice. Secondly, we need to see what is the final decision from the the telecom department on TRAI's recommendation. However, what is new here is that much more spectrum is now coming out in the auction, different from what we have seen in previous auctions, where they have kind of kept the balance between supply and demand on an artificial level. Now there is a lot of supply coming out in the auction.
So the only comment I can have to all your if's question is that we are in India to make money. We are in India to have a return. If we cannot see that return through either an auction, participation in an auction or through a spectrum trading deal, then we need to look at other alternatives, and more than that, I cannot answer you. On the Tapad acquisition, we did that for two reasons. One is that we see a need now to, in a much better way, actually use all the customer insights, the customer information that we have, and utilize that in contextual marketing. Meaning, rather than thinking traditionally, where you are dividing your customer base into segments, you use that data, and each customer becomes a segment.
The capability Tapad has in active data management, not only analyzing, but also executing on contextual marketing, it is one reason. We are running pilot projects now with some of our Asian operations, where we actually taking what the capability that Tapad have, and we're plugging them, so to speak, into the data management platform we have ourself, and we're trying then to utilize that knowledge. In addition, Tapad also have knowledge about a lot of other operators' customers that we also can try to attack with combining all this data. The other reason, of course, was to take a position on the ad tech vertical of the digital advertising. We believe that there is a potential for actually growing that business in the Asian market. Still very early days.
I've been to New York to visit the team myself and trying to familiar ourself a little bit more about the way it works. And when we come to the capital markets day in September, I will be able to talk a little bit more in detail, both on why, but more importantly, on the early results we have from these pilots, where we actually are bringing this directly into the core business.
Thank you, Sigve. Any further questions here from the audience? No, then we'll open up to the conference call, please.
We will now take our first question from Nick Lyle. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, it's Nick Lyle at Soc Gen. Could I just ask two, please? Again, on India, apologies, but could you just give us the background, please, for the assumptions that you used for your write-down for the on the spectrum trading cost? What are the assumptions that you're using there in terms of megahertz of pricing, that you could maybe give us a bit more detail on? Also, on the commitments in India, what does that relate to as well, please? Is that some sort of network rollout commitment, or could you tell us that too? Final one was, you made some comments, I think, Sigve, in the last month or so on potential interest in Indonesia, Vietnam, or Philippines. Was that just an off-the-cuff comment, or could you update us on what your thinking is behind that, please?
Thank you.
Let me take the last one, and then we can think about India. No, I think there is no, well, let me phrase it like this. Right now, the main focus we are having is to find a long-term situation in India. In addition to that, we also need to find a long-term situation in Denmark. And then on top of that, we really need to demonstrate that we are able to monetize data in more than Norway and Sweden. Though this is really the priority of the group. Having said that, of course, we will always be looking for new opportunities, but as we speak, there is no ongoing activities in that respect.
So, of course, with the presence we have in Asia, the market that you mentioned could be of interest, but that's yeah, nothing going on right now. So, if you call it off the cuff, well, that comment, it's more a comment that those markets will be on our radar screen, but there's nothing that we are focusing on right now.
On India, I think we partly have answered on that already. I think we have said that we need more spectrum long term, and we are looking into how to obtain that in a way which is profitable. And if we're not able to obtain profitable spectrum, then we have to look into other probabilities and solutions. So that's on the commitment. When it comes to the details on the specific impairment, I don't want to go into details on that. Just saying that what's the basis is what we have stated, it's the observed spectrum prices in the market and the obligations we find in Telenor India.
Thank you, both.
Okay, thank you.
Moving on to the next question, please.
Our next question comes from Roman Arbuzov. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for taking the question. My question was actually on VimpelCom. Could you please just give us a little bit more color around the divestment, and perhaps you could clarify whether you'd be prepared to get rid of the stake before the Italian deal is concluded? And also, in terms of the profile of your potential counterpart, can you say whether you're focused on perhaps strategic buyers mainly, or would you also consider capital market solutions? Thank you very much.
I will give you a little bit general answer to your question. We have clearly announced that we are going to exit VimpelCom. We have also announced that we didn't do much with that until we saw the final settlement. However, after that, we have started to prepare ourselves. And of course, preparing ourselves means picking a bank and then starting to look at the different alternatives. We have also said that we are not in a hurry. We want to have a fair price for our shares, so we are not going to dump this stock at all. However, the ambition is then to exit. And how that's going to be done and when it's going to be done, that you have to wait and see.
We will take our time and do this in a prudent manner.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Next question.
Can I take an...
Oh, sorry.
No, no, that's fine.
Please go ahead.
Okay, our next question-
Okay, next question.
Ulrich Rathe, please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. I have two questions, please. The first one is, on Norway. Sigve, can you sort of outline the outlook, into 2016 in the fourth quarter? You did talk about sort of a big theme of share defense and did mention in particular Norway with that. Now, in the first quarter, you're reporting, I think what most would consider a relatively soft top line and relatively strong margin. So I was just wondering how this fits into the plan for 2016. The second question is on Thailand. I suppose it has been discussed already a bit by dtac management, but I was wondering on your thoughts, what the risk is of simply waiting until 2018, i.e., the time when the concession expires?
Because you'll be obviously in absolute need of spectrum at that time, and competitors sort of see that, and so there's a risk that they will try to essentially put a lot of pressure on you if you leave it until 2018. So, how do you think about that risk of leaving it all to 2018 when you have an absolutely urgent need for spectrum? Thank you.
Yeah, let me start with Thailand. We have 2.1 spectrum in Thailand, through a license. And as you know, we are operating on 1800 and 850 as a concession. As I have said several times, I think the best thing that can be said about last year's auction was that it actually took place. Our worry has always been that they keep on extending the concessions rather than putting this concessionary spectrum out in an auction. And with the type of prices we saw in the last auction, and also knowing now that they will re-auction the slot that was not sold, shows me at least that the principle of auctioning old spectrum in Thailand will be very difficult to reverse.
Which means that in 2018, I don't see why the government shouldn't auction out 50 megahertz on 1800, which we are sitting on, plus the 10 megahertz on 850. On top of that, the government has also made it clear that they would like to auction out the 700 band and also the 2.3 band and 2.6 band. So there is lots of spectrum that will come out in the market in Thailand in the years to come. So that's what I'm basing my statement on when I say that we don't urgently need to buy the 900 slot, which is coming out in the auction in the end of May. But then to your question, what is the risk?
Well, the risk is, of course, that what I'm now saying is not happening, that there will not be an auction, and that there will be some other mechanism to continue the concessionary arrangement. And of course, that risk is always there, and if that turn out to happen, well, then we need to find other solutions, and see if there are other ways to cooperate with license holders or whatever that mechanism would be. But I must say that I would be surprised if that happened, with the background that I just described. On Norway, I think that I want to give Norway credit for the cost control we have seen in the first quarter. And yes, some of that is coming from lower handset sale.
Some of that is coming from a relatively nice winter in Norway, that we have had a little bit less expenses or costs on that side. That is also coming from some of the structural initiatives now starting to kick in. And those structural initiatives is actually to make, as I said, the not only the fixed business infrastructure, but the entire infrastructure that we have in Norway, more access independent. So some of this is coming true. Unfortunately, it's also then, of course, coming true with some reduction in manpower, but all this is a part of modernizing and also making the entire asset infrastructure, asset base, more efficient. So I want to give them credit for that.
I see that this will continue, and we have to continue to work with the cost base in Norway. On the top line side, well, 1% is not bad. If you compare, as I said, with an extremely strong quarter last year, 7%-8% was what we had last year, so this is not bad. However, as I also said, I think we can do even better, and that's why I'm happy that the management in Norway now have taken initiatives to try to continue the upsell logic that has benefited us in the last couple of years with introducing new packages, and also getting Norwegian customers to use data in to a better to a larger extent.
So I think we are on the way to, despite the growth we had last year, also to bring up the growth this year better than the 1% we saw in the first quarter.
Just to follow up, but in the fourth quarter, you specifically said that the share defense was aimed at fixed, right? And the fixed top line was sort of the really weak one at minus, more than minus 6% year-on-year. So sorry, my comment maybe should be more specific, but my comment was actually more on the fixed top line disappointment there in conjunction with the share defense and fixed that you mentioned at the fourth quarter.
Yeah. So on, on the fixed side, on the fixed broadband side, we are not satisfied. We are, we are not satisfied that we are not able to take more of our fair share of the growth in that market. And I know that, again, the management is addressing this, and that they are, are, as I said, increasing the rollout speed, and they are trying to utilize all the different fixed access technologies that are already out there, and also trying to really stay on the ground to, to be able to stabilize the market share. So, this, I have seen all the plans, and I'm satisfied with the plans, but it's yet to come true in revenue growth.
If I may just add, the major issue in Norway is, of course, the old...
... voice and ADSL business, which is declining. The decline this quarter is just following the pattern from earlier quarters. There is no specific events in this quarter.
Thank you, Morten, for the clarification. And for the next question, please.
We will now take our next question from Keval Khiroya. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I've got two questions, please, one on Denmark and then one on Norway. First, on Denmark, you've said for a while that Denmark needs to consolidate. Your first attempt at consolidation was rejected, and the news flow around the UK suggests that that deal could also be rejected, too. Does the news flow around the UK change your thinking at all about whether another attempt at consolidation in Denmark would actually be approved? And what's the strategy for trying to actually create some returns in the meantime? And then in Norway, have you seen any impact from Ice in the market at all, and do you think there's a risk that Ice becomes more aggressive once it can rely on its own network? Thank you.
I can try to take Norway, and then you take Denmark. Of course, we see Ice. Of course, we see our closer competitor, Telia Sonera. However, we don't see a major impact on our business from Ice. However, they are preparing themselves. They are rolling out their own network, and I wouldn't absolutely, I would not rule out that they can also give us some competitive pressure. But I think in the first quarter and in the coming couple of quarters, that will not be the major concern.
Morten?
When it regards Denmark, there are probably better people than me to speculate on the outcome in U.K. Of course, that will be an important decision, because it will give guidance on in-market consolidation, not only in Denmark, but throughout Europe. I think we are still of the opinion that the Danish market needs structural changes, which means consolidation. We are not happy with the sort of profits we are gaining from Denmark, but I think we are doing exactly what you're saying, that we are not sort of counting on structural measures to be undertaken in the very, very short term.
So we are actually running together with our Danish management team, a transformation process inside Denmark to make the business unit, as such, better fitted for the future. And we have just recently launched the Optimus Prime BSS solution, which will help, when we are through the initial phase, the both customer offering and the efficiency of the company in the years to come.
Maybe just one more comment on Norway. You may have seen that we have a negative customer development in Norway in the first quarter, but that's not coming from related to your question on Ice. That's coming from mostly prepaid customers that are now shopping around with the affordability-positioned MVNOs. And we are really focusing on keeping our share in the value segment, the post-pay segment.
Thank you.
That's clear.
Thank you.
Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Thomas Heath. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thomas Heath here with Danske Bank. Two questions, if I may. Firstly, in Myanmar, excellent to see positive cash flow margins. What do you see in terms of ability to withdraw cash from that market, given that it quite recently opened up and currencies have shifted? And then, secondly, on Tapad, you're spending NOK 3 billion for this asset. The track record of telcos owning and managing so this type of non-core assets is quite bleak across the globe. What makes you at all confident that you'll be able to manage this business and preserve the value, the standalone value in Tapad, regardless of the possible synergies with Telenor's core business? Thank you.
Yeah, I'll take Myanmar first. Of course, we haven't taken out any dividend so far, and there. We need to give them a couple more quarters before that become an issue, I guess. But, I must say that our entry into Myanmar, I will say that the government has treated us well. The way the license process was managed, the way the regulations have been developed, the way the investment laws are coming into place, the way we cooperate with both the previous government and the current government, the way we are discussing with them on lots of operational matters, gives me a very good experience.
If I take that experience, and if I see how serious the government here is to facilitate a good framework for international investors, that leads me to believe that it shouldn't be any obstacles either when it comes to then, when that time come, take money out of the country. On the Tapad question, well, of course, that's yet to be seen. I'm not standing here and saying that this has been a success after three months. But I think that you have to look at the Tapad, as I tried to explain in the last when I answered the previous question. This is not us as buying into some type of value-added services. This is us getting components that we wanna use directly into our core business.
using that to better utilize the data in as the customer insight we have or data management. And that's why we have started to roll to run those pilots to see how that value can be created. And of course, to do that, we need to let them live alone and continue to do exactly what they do. And fortunately, the entire top management had decided to stay on board here and to be a part of the journey, also with Telenor as an owner. And at the same time, trying to extract the competence that they have into our core business. So that's the reason for it.
And again, I hope that in the Capital Markets Day, I can go a little bit more into details on what we have experienced so far, because some of the pilots should then have given us some result.
Thank you, Sigve.
Bye.
Next question, please.
Jakob Bluestone, please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I just got one question on fixed Norway, just following up from Ulrich's question earlier. I mean, if you go back a year or so, your fixed revenues were almost flat, and now they're sort of shrinking 5%-6%. Can you maybe just give us a little bit of context of, you know, why we've seen such a big deterioration? Is it because of these promotions that you've been running on DSL, or, you know, what's happened over the last 4-5 quarters to drive such a big deterioration in fixed revenue growth? Thank you.
Well, as I said, the decline in fixed-line voice and ADSL on the sort of traditional service is continuing in this quarter, as with earlier quarters. We also have been driving some campaigns, which is putting some pressure on the revenues in order to take on new customers and also to develop our TV offering. So, I think that is the main explanation for the development in this quarter.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question, please.
We will now take our next question from Sunil Patel.
Yes, hi. Most of my questions are Norway, that should be answered, but I'm intrigued by Sweden. I mean, the performance there was relatively, I thought, solid on the top line in the quarter. In terms of the sort of fixed-line market in Sweden, I think Telia has done quite well with fiber connection fees and driving people up the upsell ladder. Do you not think that the, the model in Sweden fixed can somehow be applied to Norway, and you could, you know, potentially increase FTTH investments and charge connection fees in the same way that Telia has managed to do successfully in Sweden?
I really would wish so, but, I think we need to look at how market competition works. And in Sweden, fortunately, that is the case, that we can get some upfront payment. In Norway, it's not. And for us then to introduce that in Norway, I think it's a bit unrealistic. So, we need to be a part of how the competition works. So, however, of course, we are looking at all possible ways to increase the revenues. And we see that there is a demand in the market, and we see that we have one advantage at least, and that is we have a lot of different access, fixed access, access already, being ADSL, VDSL, being fiber nodes, and also being cable.
So it's a combination of this and an increased rollout that is the way we now want to make sure that we take our fair share, and hopefully a little bit more than our fair share of the growth in that segment.
If I just could add, if you look into this, the two main differences in the marketplace on fiber, Norway and Sweden, of course, the upfront payment from the customer is much higher in Sweden, so it's much better from a cash flow point of view. But you should also recognize that the ARPU, on average, is higher in Norway than we find if you compare our domestic business with the Telenor Sweden's business.
Thank you, Morten.
Thank you.
We'll have time, another 5 minutes, so we'll take a few more questions. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Stefan Gauffin. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. A couple of questions. First of all, relating to the new price plans in Norway, where you now differentiate both in terms of speed and data bucket size. Just comment on how you think that will impact the performance in Norway. Secondly, you gave the comment that you could defend your market share in Thailand without offering prepaid handset subsidies. Why then are you considering entering a prepaid handset subsidies in that market? Thank you.
On Norway, I think I already answered that question on Norway. I think with those new packages, we will be using the upsell logic, and with that, create more value both for the consumers, but also then create more revenue growth for ourselves. And that's why I'm saying that I'm satisfied with what Norway is doing, but even more so with the new initiatives that have been taken. On Thailand, I don't think I said what you referred to. What I said was that in the first quarter, we did not subsidize prepaid handsets. Our competitors did. But, and now we see now that they are getting even more aggressive of doing so.
And that's why I'm why I said that in the second quarter, you will have to expect that we also need to, at least certain extent, be a part of that if we wanna keep our market share. And that's why I'm saying also that that, of course, will then have an impact on EBITDA or the cost level in the second quarter. Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Next question comes from Maurice Patrick, please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, it's Maurice from Barclays. So very quick sort of follow-up on the roaming in Norway. Can I just check the plan you have? I think the NOK 1 billion of revenues, that's enterprise and consumer? And also, the price plans, I think the ones you're announcing are consumer ones. So if I remember correctly, in the fourth quarter, you saw a bit of enterprise weakness in mobile in Norway. Part of that, I think, was lower roaming. So to have some thoughts on some of the enterprise consumer split would be very helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, we will do the new packages, both for the consumer market and for the enterprise market. That's correct. And we plan to have the same logic on giving more into the packages, and at the same time then get people to buy into packages, which will give us the revenue return on it. So I don't think I can comment more than that. If you want to get into even more details on that, you have to either follow up with IR or call Norway. And it's very early days. We just launched it yesterday.
But the clear assumption here, it's not only to not prepare ourselves for changing EU regulations, which will come during 2017, but it's actually to use this as rather than this being a threat to our top line, use it as an opportunity to actually grow our top line with upsell logic.
Thank you.
And it's also just on the line that, as a customer, you have to take a positive change from the traditional plans into the new plans. And of course, we will help the customers coming to the price plan, which is the most appropriate for that customer.
Next question, please.
Usman Ghazi, please go ahead.
Hello, gentlemen, thank you for taking the question. I just wanted to ask about Bulgaria. I mean, we saw declines in Bulgaria significantly get better. I mean, it's only down 1% from down 8% in the second half. Just wondering what's going on there? And then, my second question was just from Sweden. You've indicated this morning that you're gonna enter the SDU market. I mean, with that strategy, is it meant to just ring-fence your existing DSL base, or is it designed to be a bit more aggressive than that? Thank you.
I can start with the Swedish. I think when you look into the SDU strategy, you will find that we will approach both current and new customers with that strategy. And the logic with the SDU is, of course, that you move into one area and try to gain as many customers as possible in that area. So that means that we will be able to meet the demands of some of the existing customers, but we'll also approach new areas with new customers. When it comes to Bulgaria, I don't think there is any particular things happening. It's a good competition.
I wouldn't say intense, but it's a competitive situation, of course, and I think our team has been able to respond in a good way. And as you know, we have a good position on postpaid in Bulgaria. Maybe just one more point on Bulgaria. Just one more point on Bulgaria. We have taken a position of being first on launching 4G, and I think that is enabling us to really be attractive in the high-end segment and in the postpaid segment.
Can I just do one follow-up? So in, in Sweden, are you, is this an, gonna be an open LAN strategy? Are you actually digging the streets yourself? Or, I mean, how are you, how are you gonna roll out, to these additional households?
Major part of what we have launched in the ambition of covering 500,000 more SDUs is digging in the streets in a smart way. But of course, if we find opportunities with the open net societies, et cetera, we'll also take that opportunity. That could be a combination, but we will be digging, yes.
Great. Thank you.
Yes, we have time for two, three more questions and then close the session. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Terence Tsui. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. It's Terence here from Morgan Stanley. I've got a question here on the CapEx. You mentioned higher CapEx spend in Bangladesh and Thailand. Can you give us some early ideas as to what sort of financial payback you expect to see from these investments? Or whether we should see this as recurring CapEx? And just a very quick second question: Just what's the latest that you're seeing in terms of timing on the Deloitte review on VimpelCom? Thank you.
Well, the first question, if you look at the Q1 results from Bangladesh, 12% revenue growth and 55% margin, and now with 36% of our customers actually using data, I think we have a good payback on additional investments. And as I also said, we are now bringing 3G in on all our 2G base stations, so that we will be by far the operator that is covering the widest on the data network. And the same logic, of course, we are using in Thailand. And one of the issues where we, why we lost market share a couple of years ago, was that we were too late to upgrade our network to data, and the entire Thai competition now is based on data.
So, we also see a payback on that. We haven't given you any answers on when or how long will that 17%-19% CapEx guiding last. And you're not going to get that answer from me now either. But of course, we are in a high investment phase now. We are investing significantly into both the 3G and 4G in our markets. So when we meet you at the Capital Markets Day in September, we will put forward a little bit more clear guiding on when can we expect this high investment level to be reduced. On the Deloitte, Deloitte is still working on their mandate, which was to go through the entire VimpelCom history from 2005 up to today.
We don't know when that report will be finalized, but as soon as it will, we will, of course, then come out with the key findings here. We have made it clear that those findings will be publicized.
Great. Thank you.
Two more questions, please.
George Ierodiaconou, please go ahead.
Thank you for taking the question. It's just one, actually, but it's relating directly to both India and the Philippines, which was mentioned in one of your interviews. Obviously, you had a mixed experience with JVs in the past, and I was wondering, under what circumstances will you be considering perhaps a JV structure or a structure where you may not have full control, in both something like a new market you can enter, like the Philippines or in India, where obviously you need to look at all possible options available to you? Thank you.
Well, I think it's your question is a nice try, but I think you know my answer. We are looking at how we can create a long-term sustainable business, and which means that we need more spectrum, and there are several alternatives we are looking at, but at the same time, all options are on the table, and more than that, I cannot comment on.
Thank you, Sigve and Morten. That concludes our session today. Thank you very much for participating. For media present, there will be the opportunity to speak to both Sigve and Morten, shortly after this. Thank you very much.