Norway's biggest telecoms group Telenor is expected to make a bid for Vodafone Sweden, estimated to be worth more than 750 million euros ($945 million), the Business newspaper reported on Sunday. The paper said the state-controlled Norwegian company was known to be dissatisfied with its position in Sweden, where it has just 107,000 subscribers compared with market leader TeliaSonera's 4.3 million.
The paper added that Vodafone's Swedish arm, which has some 1.5 million subscribers, had been performing poorly compared with its other divisions and Sweden was an overcrowded and unappealing market for a global operator such as Vodafone.
While Telenor officials were not immediately available for comment on the report, a spokesman for Vodafone in London repeated a comment made by the company last May that it believed it was the best owner for the business.