Norway's Telenor flags lower earnings on dismal Asian businesses

OSLO, July 16 (Reuters) - Norwegian telecoms group Telenor said on Tuesday the company expects a decline in earnings for the rest of the year, dented by problems faced at some of its Asian operations.

The new guidance includes an "adjusted outlook" at its Malaysian operations, Digi, as well as a provision from its Grameenphone business in Bangladesh, Telenor said.

The Norwegian company had said on Sunday its second-quarter earnings would take a hit from "errors" discovered at Grameenphone.

"Based on this and on the results so far this year, we expect subscription and traffic revenues at about the 2018 level and a low single-digit EBITDA decline," the telco said in a statement.

The updated guidance includes an outlook for its Thai operations, dtac, which had been excluded from the company's guidance in the previous quarter.

In the second quarter, Telenor reported adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 11.09 billion crowns ($1.30 billion) compared with 11.03 billion crowns in the year-ago period.

($1 = 8.5375 Norwegian crowns) (Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)