article be merged with telia carrier . discuss proposed since september 2016 . telia company ab type publicly traded aktiebolag traded as nasdaq stockholm tlsn industry telecommunications founded 2003 ; 13 years ago 2003 headquarters stureplan stockholm sweden area served europe asia key people johan dennelind president and ceo marie ehrling chairman products tier 1 network provider mobile network operator internet service provider fixed line communications revenue sek 101 billion 2014 1 operating income sek 22.68 billion 2014 1 profit sek 15.60 billion 2014 1 total assets sek 272.066 billion end 2014 1 total equity sek 116.36 billion end 2014 1 owner government of sweden 37.3 % solidium finnish state 3.2 % 2 number of employees 26 166 end 2014 1 website teliacompany.com telia company ab is the dominant telephone company and mobile network operator in sweden and finland . the company has operations in other countries in northern and eastern europe and in central asia and south asia with a total of 182.1 million mobile customers q1 2013 . it is headquartered in stockholm and its stock is traded on the stockholm stock exchange and on the helsinki stock exchange . contents 1 history 1.1 telia 1.2 sonera 1.3 after merger 2 operations 2.1 afghanistan 2.2 azerbaijan 2.3 cambodia 2.4 denmark 2.5 estonia 2.6 finland 2.7 georgia 2.8 kazakhstan 2.9 latvia 2.10 lithuania 2.11 moldova 2.12 nepal 2.13 norway 2.14 russia 2.15 sweden 2.16 tajikistan 2.17 turkey 2.18 uzbekistan 3 evolution of the teliasonera s brand 4 controversies 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit telia company is the result of a 2002 merger between the swedish and finnish telecommunications companies telia and sonera . this merger followed shortly after telia s failed merger with norwegian telecommunications company telenor now its chief competitor in the nordic countries . before privatisation telia company was a state telephone monopoly . sonera on the other hand had a monopoly only on trunk network calls while most c. 75 % of local telecommunication was provided by telephone cooperatives . the separate brand names telia and sonera have continued to be used in the swedish and finnish markets respectively . of the stock 37 % is owned by the swedish government 3.2 % by the finnish government and the rest by institutions companies and private investors worldwide . telia edit see also televerket sweden the swedish kungl . telegrafverket literally royal telegraph agency was founded in 1853 when the first electric telegraph line was established between stockholm and uppsala . allm nna telefon found an equipment supplier in lars magnus ericsson . in this early competition telegrafverket with its brand rikstelefon was a latecomer . however by securing a national monopoly on long distance telephone lines it was able with time to control and take over the local networks of quickly growing private telephone companies . a de facto telephone monopoly position was reached around 1920 and never needed legal sanction . in 1953 the name was modernised to televerket . on 1 july 1992 this huge government agency s regulating functions was split off into the swedish post and telecom authority swedish post och telestyrelsen pts with similar functions as the federal communications commission of the united states . the operation of the state radio and tv broadcast network was spun off into a company named teracom . on 1 july 1993 the remaining telephone and mobile network operator was transformed into a government owned shareholding company named telia ab . at the height of the dot com bubble on 13 june 2000 close to one third of telia s shares were introduced on the stockholm stock exchange . in the 1980s televerket was a pioneering mobile network operator with the nmt system followed in the 1990s by gsm . private competition in analogue mobile phone systems had already broken the telephone monopoly and the growing internet allowed more opportunities for competitors . the most important of telia s swedish competitors in these areas has been tele2 . when pts awarded four licenses for the 3rd generation mobile networks in december 2000 telia was not among the winners but later established an agreement to build a 3g network jointly with tele2 using tele2 s licence . sunab was founded as the jointly owned company that would in turn build own and operate the joint 3g network . sonera edit the history of sonera dates back to 1917 when suomen lenn tinlaitos finnish telegraph agency was founded . in 1927 the telegraph agency was merged with the finnish post to form a new agency post and telegraph agency . this agency governed all long distance and international calls until 1994 when competitors were allowed to enter the finnish market . in the same year the post and telegraph agency was divided to form two companies suomen posti oy finnish post and telecom finland oy . telecom finland then changed its name to sonera in 1998 . after merger edit during the run up to the 2006 general election the swedish liberal conservative alliance stated as one of its policy aims to reduce government ownership in commercial entities and specifically to sell its stake in teliasonera . the alliance went on to win the election and formed a coalition government . the sale of teliasonera was however presented to the parliament only after the next election in 2010 when the alliance lost its majority but stayed on as a minority administration . on 16 march 2011 the alliance administration lost a parliamentary vote on sale of publicly owned commercial entities including teliasonera when a coalition of all opposition parties the left party social democratic party green party and sweden democrats united against the alliance . 3 in the beginning of 2008 teliasonera announced measures to save nearly 500 million euros which would include 2900 redundancies 2000 from sweden and 900 from finland . 4 france t l com now orange s.a. proposed a 33 billion euro acquisition offer for teliasonera on 5 june 2008 which was promptly rejected by the company s board . 5 teliasonera international carrier as1299 is a tier 1 carrier . operations edit teliasonera global activities . majority owned operations . associated companies . telia company is now the largest nordic and baltic fixed voice broadband and mobile operator by revenue and customer base . it operates europe s largest and fastest growing wholesale ip backbone as1299 and is the 10th largest global mobile group by consolidated customers including ownership stakes in turkcell 6 yoigo megafon netcom and others . 7 telia mobile telephone business in europe . estonia latvia lithuania and sweden leader company . finland norway and moldova 2nd company . denmark 3rd company . spain 4th company . afghanistan edit teliasonera is a 12.25 % stakeholder of the afghanistan roshan telco cellphone network . 8 azerbaijan edit on 15 may 2010 after azercell went through rebranding it joined the network of teliasonera . cambodia edit teliasonera purchased a majority stake in star cell in 2008 which was the number four player in the market at that time . by 2010 it exited cambodia after a 100 million write down and collapse in subscriber numbers . it was subsequently taken over by a more dominant competitor smart mobile . denmark edit in denmark teliasonera operates a mobile operator telia a mobile virtual network operator call me and a broadband supplier telia . the company started in 1995 the result of a merger between telia stofa and teliasonera . telia mobile is the third largest operator and is in fierce competition with telenor which is number two in the market . telia was the fourth operator to launch 3g services and is the only operator to have a nationwide edge network . telia broadband was relaunched in 2008 because of the need for teliasonera to offer both mobile and broadband in all of their home markets sweden norway denmark and finland . telia broadband was the first operator to launch digital tv with their broadband at no extra cost . stofa is mainly a cable tv operator but also supplies broadband via the cable tv network . estonia edit teliasonera owns 100 % of eesti telekom . eesti telekom is one of the largest telecommunication companies in the baltic countries and the largest telecommunications company in estonia . teliasonera and the estonian government reached a deal over the sale of eesti telekom in september 2009 . on 20 january 2016 eesti telekom switched its name to telia eesti . finland edit sonera is the largest mobile operator in finland and also one of the biggest providers of landline telephone and internet services . teliasonera also operates in finland in the form of another company tele finland oy which is a budget mobile operator . georgia edit since 2007 teliasonera has owned 58.55 % of the geocell company while turkcell owns the remaining 41.45 % . kazakhstan edit teliasonera operates in kazakhstan under the brand kcell . latvia edit teliasonera owns 49 % of lmt 24.5 % as teliasonera ab and 24.5 % as sonera holding b.v. . teliasonera also owns 49 % of lattelecom which owns 23 % of lmt which owns okarte amigo . it also owns 100 % of telia latvija a business cable operator and data center operator . lithuania edit teliasonera owns 88.15 % of teo lt the largest landline phone operator in lithuania which recently purchased omnitel one of largest mobile network operators there . it was previously owned by teliasonera group . in october 2015 teliasonera announced the merger of teo and omnitel through the acquisition of omnitel by teo . the acquisition is expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2016 at the latest . needs update moldova edit teliasonera owns a 74 3 % see through stake definition needed of the moldovan mobile operator moldcell through fintur holdings . nepal edit teliasonera owned a majority stake in ncell the largest mobile operator in nepal with usd 16.2 billion operating income . on 21 december 2015 teliasonera announced its exit from ncell selling its 60.4 percent of the shares to malaysian telecommunications group axiata . 9 norway edit in norway telia first entered after the de regulation in 1998 as a virtual supplier of fixed telephone and internet services . this was sold to enitel during the merger attempt with telenor but telia re entered in 2000 with the purchase of one of the two mobile network operators netcom . in 2006 it also bought the virtual mobile provider chess communication . 1 march 2016 netcom was rebranded as telia . russia edit teliasonera owns 25.2 % of megafon the second largest mobile phone operator in russia . sweden edit in sweden teliasonera operates under the consumer brands telia and halebop . on the business side skanova access and cygate are also used . tajikistan edit teliasonera owns 60 % of mobile phone operator tcell . tcell is a merger of somoncom and indigo tajikistan ; the merger was completed in july 2012 . turkey edit teliasonera owns 38 % of turkcell the leading mobile operator in turkey . turkcell owns 80 % of best in belarus and 100 % of astelit in ukraine uzbekistan edit in 5 years ucell the uzbek subsidiary increased the number of its subscribers from 400 000 to 9 million 2012 . teliasonera is under preliminary investigation by swedish prosecutors for allegations of bribery and money laundering associated with the acquisition of their 3g license in uzbekistan from takilant limited registered in gibraltar . 10 under these investigations involving four uzbek nationals hundreds of millions of francs have been frozen in swiss banks . 11 evolution of the teliasonera s brand edit the old logo of teliasonera when telia and sonera merged in 2002 teliasonera used a simple wordmark as the logo . in 2011 teliasonera released its new purple pebble logo to the corporation and its affiliate brands . the pebble was