Economic environment in Asia fuels Norwegian telecoms operator Telenor – while its Swedish peer Tele2 grows in Russia.

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Norwegian telecoms operator Telenor on Wednesday announced net profits multiplied by seven for the second quarter, at 9.8 billion kroner (1.18 billion euros) against 1.8 billion a year ago, on the strength of its activities in Asia.

The figures include an exceptional 6.5-billion-kroner profit from the merger of its shares in Russia's Vimpelcom and Ukraine's Kievstar into a new company jointly owned with Russia's Alfa.

The profits are higher than the 9.1 billion kroner predicted by analysts at Dow Jones Newswires.

Turnover was up 2.7 percent to 25.2 billion kroner, the company said in its report.

"The economic environment in Asia continued to improve, fuelling the revenue growth in our operations," the group's managing director Jon Fredrik Baksaas was quoted as saying.

Telenor is 54 percent owned by the Norwegian state.

Sweden’s second-largest telephone company Tele2 said the same day it increased net profit by 46 percent to 1,649 million kronor ($220 million), boosted by growth on the Russian and Nordic market.

"We achieved several important milestones during the second quarter of 2010. The availability of more affordable smart phone handsets contributed to the creation of a mass market, benefiting Tele2’s more value-oriented customers; we improved the mix of our handset portfolio in Sweden; Tele2 Russia exceeded 16 million customers and the new regions started to reach profitability; and Tele2 Croatia attained EBITDA break-even. This positive momentum will take Tele2 to the next level", Lars Nilsson, CFO & Interim President and CEO, Tele2 AB, said in a statement.