Telenor reported third-quarter results that were in line with our expectations, and we are maintaining our fair value estimate and moat rating. Revenue increased 6.7% year over year versus our full-year projection of 4.5%, but benefited from a 2.2% currency gain. It was nice to see a currency gain, as Telenor has suffered from currency losses in recent years. The currency doesn't change our expectations, though. The firm's primary growth driver remains wireless subscriber growth, with its base up 11% year over year to 178.7 million. The countries with the biggest movements were India (up 32.2% to 34.4 million), Pakistan (up 12.5% to 36.4 million), Bangladesh (up 9.2% to 50.3 million), and Malaysia (up 4.8% to 11.3 million). However, Thailand, which has historically grown in double digits, saw subscribers decline in the quarter.
We anticipate subscriber growth will steadily slow, but we are pleased to see data usage increasing, with 29% of customers now active data users. We expect increasing data usage to help offset the slowing subscriber growth and allow revenue to continue to grow faster than most other European telecom operators. While we are somewhat concerned about the dramatic slowdown in Thailand, we think the increased competitive market is mostly driven by issues unique to that country, where the operators have switched from a concession system to a license system and each operator is now responsible for its own network.
Telenor continues to keep costs growing at a slower rate than revenue, which allowed its EBITDA margin to hit 37% versus our full-year estimate of 34.9%. However, the fourth quarter's margins are historically much lower than the rest of the year. Thus, we anticipate full-year results to move toward our projecti on but finish slightly above it. That said, our expected improvement in 2015 may be too high due to the problems in Thailand offsetting the strength in 2014. We think the shares are fairly valued.
