#59 – Telia: Better Connected Living
“We reinvent better connected living”
— by Telia Company, the Swedish telecommunications operator whose roots stretch back to 1853, when Sweden established its national telegraph service, decades before the invention of the modern internet.
Unlike many telecom companies that emerged from private entrepreneurship, Telia grew out of the very infrastructure that connected a nation.
Over more than 170 years, it evolved from telegraph lines to telephone networks, from state monopoly to publicly traded company, and from Nordic operator to one of the largest telecommunications groups in the Nordic and Baltic region.
Today, Telia serves millions of customers across Sweden, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Lithuania, and other Nordic-Baltic markets.
The company generates approximately SEK 88.6 billion (€7.7 billion) in annual revenue, employs more than 20,000 people, and operates some of the region’s most advanced mobile and broadband networks.
Its purpose is particularly interesting because it does not focus on technology itself, or on networks, coverage, or bandwidth; instead, it focuses on living and reinventing.
The word “connected” has become so common that we rarely stop to ask what it is actually for.
Connectivity is valuable only insofar as it improves how people live, work, learn, create relationships, and participate in society.
That perspective has guided the company’s recent transformation. After years of expansion into Eurasian markets, regulatory controversies, and strategic complexity, Telia deliberately narrowed its focus to the Nordic and Baltic region, simplified its operations, and repositioned itself around trusted digital infrastructure and sustainable value creation.
Today, the company reports 97% population coverage across its 5G networks in its core consumer markets, while linking growth, sustainability, customer experience, and societal impact under the same strategic framework.
Most telecom operators are busy maintaining connections. Telia’s purpose suggests that every new generation of technology should be accompanied by a new understanding of how connectivity can improve life itself.
For a company that began by transmitting telegraph signals across Sweden in the nineteenth century, that may be the most relevant challenge of all: not just connecting people, but continually redefining what a better connected life can be.
