Robi Axiata, the country's second biggest telecom operator, continued to grow in the third quarter (July-September) of the ongoing calendar year, with a revenue increase of 5.9% year-on-year (YoY) to Tk2,207.4 crore.
On the other hand, in contrast to the last quarter, their revenue rose by 4.8%.
The operator's voice and data revenue also increased by 6% and 2.8% respectively from the previous quarter.
On a YoY basis, the voice revenue growth stood at 8.7% and data revenue growth 3.8% according to the company's latest financial reports.
However, the operator saw a decline of 0.3% in its subscriber base compared to the last quarter, despite Robi's subscriber base reaching 54.4 million at the end of this year's Q3 and posting a 2.5% YoY increase.
Meanwhile, the operator reported having 41.1 million data subscribers at the end of the last quarter, recording a 4.8% rise YoY.
According to the company, around 50.9 %of its subscribers were 4G users, around 75.5 %were internet subscribers and, of the data subscribers, 67.3% were 4G users, claiming that it has brought 98.2 %of the population under its 4G network coverage with 15,219 4G sites.
At the end of Q3 of 2022, the company had 27.6 million 4G subscribers, which is a 4.9 %rise compared to the previous quarter and 23.2% year-on-year.
In regards to revenue, Robi's revenue in the first nine months of 2022 reached Tk6,331.7 crore when it made a profit after tax of Tk56.9 crore.
However, despite a significant YoY growth in revenue in Q3, earnings per share of the company dropped because of a reduction in profit, recording a decrease of 14.28% compared to the same quarter last year.
The company's EPS in the third quarter of 2022 was Tk0.06, down from Tk0.11 in the same period last year.
According to Robi's Acting Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer M Riyaaz Rasheed, profitability remained subdued due to large scale capital expenditure injection into the business.
High depreciation and amortization cost induced by sustained capex investment has squeezed the profit margin, according to the official.
"Quality subscriber acquisition drive led to the slight decline (0.3%) in our subscriber base compared to the last quarter. However, multi-simmers, who have several connections, seemed to have better focused on their preferred connections and, that is why average revenue from loyal users increased, which helped the total revenue grow too," said Shahed Alam, chief corporate and regulatory officer of Robi Axiata Limited.
"We now offer the best combination of 4G network coverage, and capacity at the moment. Hence, our per user average data usage is the highest in the industry, and have the highest proportion of 4G users (50.9%) in our total subscriber base in the industry," he added.
The company made a capex investment of Tk555.5 crore in the same quarter.
The top brass feels there is no alternative to the strategy for increasing the scale of Robi's business, which is critical to securing long-term sustainable growth in profit margin.
On top of that, frequent power disruptions, which are now forcing mobile operators to use generators at their network sites for uninterrupted services, increased Robi Axiata's network maintenance cost by 29% in the July-September period and the company is embracing solar power for a smoother future.
Already having installed solar power systems at its one-tenth or 1,600 network stations, the company is going to add around 500 sites under solar by the end of June next year and it is planning for 100% solar coverage by 2030.
Foreign exchange losses and high taxes and duty burden also led to the profitability squeeze in the third quarter, according to Robi.
In the third quarter, the mobile operator handed over Tk1,012.2 crore to the government exchequer, which was 45.9 %of Robi's total revenue for the quarter.
