Third quarter weakness in some of its Nordic mobile operations forced Telenor to trim its full-year guidance.

Lacklustre mobile data growth in Norway was a particular disappointment. Domestic ARPU, year-on-year, dropped 4 per cent to NOK294 ($50).

Reduced interconnect fees and lower roaming charges hardly helped, but mobile data growth was not strong enough to offset losses.

“The revenue development in Norway is weaker than expected,” admitted Jon Fredrik Baksaas, Telenor’s chief executive.

“In order to secure healthy return on our high network investments, we need to further optimise data centric offers to stimulate demand for mobile data and at the same time deliver the required revenue growth,” he continued.

Accounting for around a quarter of group turnover, the performance of Norway’s mobile and fixed-line operations has an obvious impact on the group. Telenor trimmed its full-year organic revenue growth guidance from 2-4 per cent to 1-2 per cent.

At a group level, Q3 revenue was up a modest 1 per cent, to NOK25.95 billion. Net income, however, was up a creditable 15 per cent, to NOK4.68 billion. And a record high EBITDA of NOK9.6 billion reinforces Telenor’s reputation for running a tight ship.

In Norway, however, 3Q revenue fell slightly from last year’s NOK6.44 billion to NOK6.27 billion. Mobile revenue slipped from NOK3.48 billion to NOK3.37 billion.

In Denmark, Baksaas flagged “continued challenging market conditions”. The executive said Telenor is now embarking upon “an ambitious transformation programme” in the country, which will run through 2014.

Over in Sweden, however, Telenor seems to be doing a better job at mobile data. Although Q3 mobile ARPU decreased by 5 per cent in local currency, driven mainly by lower interconnect rates and increased handset-related discounts for new subscriptions, Telenor points out that if these factors were taken out of the equation then ARPU would have leapt 8 per cent through data-centric growth.

In Asia, Telenor continues to make 3G progress in Thailand. Launching 3G services on 23 July, Telenor’s dtac subsidiary had migrated 3.7 million subscribers onto the new network as of 30 September.

Adjusted for interconnect rate reductions, dtac Q3 revenue, in local currency, increased 9 per cent year-on-year through continued strong demand for mobile data.

“The migration of customers is progressing according to plan and dtac aims to have a minimum of 10 million customers on the licenced network by the end of the year,” says Baksaas. “In the years to come, we expect significant cost savings and margin improvement from the transition to the licence regime.”

Elsewhere in Asia, which includes operations in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Malaysia, Telenor’s boss sees plenty of scope for growth. Only around one in four of Telenor’s customers in Asia, he said, have access to the internet.

Telenor’s Q3 subscription and traffic revenue increased by 9 per cent in Asia. “In Thailand and Malaysia, where the internet is already the main growth driver, we added 240,000 and 279,000 customers, respectively,” said Baksaas.