Telia Company in its current form was first established as TeliaSonera, as the result of a 2002
merger between the Swedish and Finnish telecommunications companies,
Telia and
Sonera. This merger followed three years after Telia's failed merger attempt with
Norwegian telecommunications company
Telenor, now its chief competitor in the Nordic countries. Before
privatisation, Telia 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 brands Telia and Sonera continued to be used in the Swedish and Finnish markets respectively until March 2017, when Sonera was rebranded to Telia. Of the
stock, 39.5% (31 March 2020) is owned by the
Swedish government, and the rest by institutions, companies, and private investors worldwide. The
Finnish government (through
Solidium) divested from Telia Company in February 2018, when it sold its remaining 3.2% stake.
Telia The Swedish
Kungl. Telegrafverket (literally:
Royal Telegraph Agency) was founded in 1853, when the first electric
telegraph line was established between Stockholm and
Uppsala.
Allmänna 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 (, 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. In December 2018, Telia in cooperation with
Ericsson launched Sweden's first 5G network at
KTH Royal Institute of Technology in
Stockholm.
Sonera The history of Sonera dates back to 1917, when
Suomen Lennätinlaitos (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 changed its name to Sonera in 1998, and went on to merge with Telia in 2002, forming TeliaSonera.
After the merger of Telia and Sonera 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. After the merger with Sonera, the Swedish State held 46% of the shares and with parliamentary approval the government sold down to 37.3%. 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. In the beginning of 2008, TeliaSonera announced measures to save nearly 500 million
euros which would include 2,900 redundancies: 2,000 from Sweden and 900 from Finland. France Télécom (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. Further divestment of TeliaSonera was presented to the parliament after the 2010 election, at which the Alliance lost its majority but stayed on as a minority administration. On 12 April 2016, the company changed its name to Telia Company, dropping the Sonera part, rebranding the company to aid recovery after bribery and money laundering allegations. On 20 July 2018, Telia Company announced the acquisition proposal of
Bonnier Broadcasting Group from
Bonnier Group for 9.2 billion
SEK (roughly $1 billion), thus owning
TV4 AB (commercial television broadcaster in Sweden),
MTV Oy (commercial television broadcaster in Finland) and
C More Entertainment (pan-Nordic operator of premium television channels). The
European Commission approved the deal on 12 November 2019 with certain conditions, and the acquisition was completed on 2 December that year. Ahead of the completion of Bonnier Broadcasting deal, the Telia Company nomination committee proposed on 20 October 2019, that
Marie Ehrling be succeeded by Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, the former
CEO of
Tele2 until 2008, and then-chair of
Egmont Media, as the company's board chair. The proposal was approved on 26 November that year, following the
extraordinary general meeting. Meanwhile, on 24 October, Telia Company appointed
Allison Kirkby, the former CEO of Tele2 from 2015 until 2018 and then went on to become the president and CEO of
TDC, as the company's new president and CEO. Kirkby assumed office on 4 May 2020. On 6 October 2020, Telia Company agreed to sell its
Internet backbone unit
Telia Carrier to Polhem Infra for roughly US$1 billion. The sale was completed on 1 June 2021. On 25 February 2025, Telia announced that it was selling its media division to in order to focus on its consumer division, the sale is scheduled to be completed by Q3 2025, pending regulatory approval. ==Operations==