Forex loss knocks off 49% of Robi’s annual profit

Foreign exchange losses ate away nearly half of the annual profit of Robi Axiata in 2022, said the company in an earnings disclosure programme on Sunday.

With 5.4% growth in annual revenue to Tk8,586 crore in 2022, the company would have posted Tk361 crore in net profits if it had not incurred foreign exchange loss of Tk179 crore.

However, its annual net profit of Tk182.7 crore was still 1.3% higher than that in the previous year and its board of directors recommended a 7% cash dividend for 2022.

"Forex loss has deprived us from a stellar year. On top of that, application of a 2% minimum tax felt like the last nail in the coffin as far as our net profits for the year were concerned, said Robi CEO Rajeev Sethi.

The company invested Tk1,530 crore in 2022 and as the capital expenditure was mostly import-dependent, the cost of settling letters of credit against import surged abnormally due to the one-fourth appreciation of dollar against the local currency.

The company struggling to earn a lucrative profit margin also could have secured a much higher profit if the government had not taken away a 2% of the revenue as minimum tax.

However, the company has had a better year in terms of business operations with their costs optimised.

"On the positive side, we managed to make significant gains out of our optimised cost structure. Going forward, we will continue to leverage cost optimisation to strengthen our bottom-line," said the CEO.

Robi continued to enjoy 4G leadership position in 2022 with 53% of its total subscribers being 4G users and around 76% of its subscriber base were data users in 2022, which was the highest in the industry.

Robi's subscriber base grew by around 1.4% compared to 2021 to reach 5.44 crore at the end of 2022, representing a 30% of the subscriber market share. On the other hand, data subscriber base grew by 4% in 2022 to reach 4.11 crore.

Meanwhile, compared to 2021, Robi's 4G subscriber base grew by 21% to reach 2.89 crore.

Voice revenue in 2022 increased by 9%, data revenue increased by around 2%, compared to 2021, according to the company.