Elisa Oyj is a Finnishtelecommunications company founded in 1882. Its previous names were Helsingin Puhelin and Elisa Communication Oyj. Elisa is a telecommunications, ICT and online service company operating mainly in Finland and Estonia, but it also offers digital services for international markets. It has over 6.2 million consumer, corporate and public administration organisation subscriptions. In Finland, Elisa is the market leader in mobile and fixed network subscriptions while in Estonia it is the second largest mobile network operator. Elisa provides environmentally sustainable services for communication and entertainment, and tools for improving operating methods and productivity of organisations. It is cooperating with Vodafone. Elisa offers fixed and mobile subscriptions and broadband subscriptions under Elisa and Elisa Saunalahti brands. Other services include cable-tv-subscriptions. Elisa's new digital services are among others Elisa Viihde, Elisa Kirja, Elisa Videra, Elisa Automate and Elisa Smart Factory. Elisa is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Large Cap with approximately 180,000 shareholders. In 2018, Elisa’s revenue was 1.83 billion euros, and the company employed 4,800 people.
Organization
Elisa reports its performance in two segments: Consumer Customers and Corporate Customers. The company operates nationwide and has employees also internationally. Elisa’s CEO has been from 1 July 2003 Veli-Matti Mattila who is one of the longest serving CEO’s of listed companies in Finland.
Elisa has approximately 186,000 shareholders, of which approximately 55 per cent are Finnish households and institutions. Largest shareholders are Finnish national institutions.
Subsidiaries
In February 2020 Elisa's subsidiaries in Finland were
cable and fixed broadband company called Elisa Teleteenused AS and
Santa Monica Networks AS, network company
Partners and Startups
In 2015 Elisa founded a startup team to accelerate startup operations. Startups include e.g. Transfluent, Oura Health, OnePlus and Two Hat’s Community Sift. Elisa has organised "AI Co-creation Challenge" during the Slush event. In 2018 the winner of EUR 50,000 award was Lifemote.
History
Elisa was originally established on 31 January 1882 by the electrical engineerDaniel Wadén as a telephone cooperative called the Helsinki Telephone Association. HPY began serving customers on 6 June 1882 by connecting 56 phone numbers; by 1884 the number of yearly calls surpassed one million. HPY started expanding during the 1920s and 30s by merging with smaller cooperative telephone operators. In 1921, HPY and the over 400 other privately operated telephone cooperatives then existing in Finland formed the Puhelinlaitosten liitto consortium, which was renamed as Finnet in 1996. The company reached its current geographical operating field in 1958. HPY's original form of incorporation, a mutualassociation, was changed to a legal cooperative in 1995, listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange as Helsingin Puhelin Oyj in 1997, and then changed again to a joint-stock company under the name HPY Holding Oyj. HPY was eventually demutualised in 2000, and was renamed as Elisa Communications Oyj. Elisa Communications Oyj left the Finnet consortium in 2001, and would eventually unify all of its offerings under the Elisa branding in 2003–2004. Elisa launched the first commercial GSM service under the Radiolinja brand in 1991 and the world's first commercial UMTS900 network on 8 November 2007. Investment company Novator Partners acquired a 10.4% stake in Elisa in 2005 through a share swap when Elisa bought the smaller operator Saunalahti, which had been mostly owned by Novator. Novator tried to revamp Elisa in December 2007, but was opposed by Finnish institutions such as Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company. In October 2008, during the Icelandic financial crisis, Novator sold its entire stake in Elisa to Varma for 194 million euros, a price of €11.20 per share. On 27 June 2018, Elisa launched the world's first commercial 5G NR network in the Finnish city ofTampere and in the Estonian capital of Tallinn.
Corporate responsibility
Elisa is committed to Science Based Targets and publishes verified responsibility report annually. HPY Research Foundation was founded in 1999 to support research studies of telecommunications technology, studies closely related to telecommunications business or the use of telecommunications. Research studies should be in the areas of technological, economical or behavioural sciences and the level of post-graduate studies aiming to doctoral thesis or higher level studies. By 2018 the Foundation had granted a total of 1.048.710 EUR to mainly researches for their doctoral thesis in various universities. The Foundation library had 119 doctoral thesis.
Rewards
Elisa has been awarded the Great Place to Work in 2017, 2018 and 2019. In 2019 it was the first Finnish teleoperator to receive the Finnish Quality Award.
