Grameenphone braves tough times
Defying a decline in subscriber base amidst regulatory issues and macroeconomic pressure, Grameenphone (GP) Ltd has secured revenue growth for the sixth consecutive quarter that alongside some other factors helped the company offset the rising costs in business and post a decent growth in profits too.
However, the shareholders of the largest publicly traded company are in pain as they barely have been able to sell any shares stuck on the floor price for a month.
GP, also the largest telecom operator in the country, has lost 29 lakh or 3.4% of its subscribers in the three months through September as it was unable to add new customers due to the regulatory ban on its new connection sales.
At the end of June this year, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) imposed a ban on GP's new connection selling citing the insufficient quality of its services. The ban is still persisting, while the regulator in the middle of September allowed GP to sell the unused and suspended connections.
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Existing customers, however, used GP's voice call and mobile internet services more which helped the company secure 6.7% growth in its total revenue in the July-September quarter, compared to the 1.8% revenue growth a year ago.
"Grameenphone's growth momentum continued in the third quarter driven by strong market execution aided by higher revenue and usage in the midst of several external challenges," GP Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Yasir Azman said in a statement.
The company continued investment in its network rollout and spectrum deployment to meet the demand for high-speed internet connectivity and improve customer experience, leading to over 19,000 4G sites.
"As a result, our customers continue to choose Grameenphone as their preferred communications partner, leading to 52.1% higher data usage from last year and 15.9% year-on-year growth in 4G users that reached 3.2 crore," said the CEO.
GP's revenue grew to Tk3,865 crore in the July-September quarter, and to Tk11,287 crore for the first nine months of the year.
"We are also facing a tense macroeconomic climate in Bangladesh driven by higher inflation, rising energy prices, and austerity measures by the government to curb energy usage," Yasir Azman explained the factors that made business tougher in recent months.
The GP quarterly financial statement also reflected it as its costs for material and traffic charges, operations and maintenance, sales and marketing and finances soared, compared to that in the same period of last year.
However, the company offset some of that by reducing its total salaries and personnel costs by more than one-fourth.
Grameenphone shares having a face value of Tk10 each have been unchanged at the floor price of Tk286.6 in the Dhaka Stock Exchange since 22 August.
