Grameenphone Ltd. (GP) reported BDT 2,283 crore revenues for the third quarter of 2011, a strong 18% and BDT 349 crore increase from the corresponding period of 2010. Compared to the high growth performance in the second quarter of 2011, GP recorded BDT 9.5 crore incremental revenues. The year on year revenue growth mainly came through contribution from subscription and traffic revenues fuelled by steady subscription growth and contributions from data, roaming and wholesale businesses.
“I am happy to inform our Honourable Shareholders that the company has been able to uplift the business growth momentum even in a daunting regulatory environment”, said Tore Johnsen, CEO of GP. He also noted that GP, as a company, stayed put and did not lose focus on delivering the best telecommunication services towards the remotest corner of the country as well as creating maximum value for shareholders’ money.
Towards the commitment of further expanding the rural horizon, GP has managed to add 32 thousand more retailers into its robust distribution network during the quarter taking the total retail outlets close to 300,000. Capitalizing on this reinforcement, 14 lakh new subscriptions were added, posting a growth of 23% from the same period of 2010. GP’s subscription base now stands at 3.52 crores with approximately 44% market share.
Net profit after taxes for the third quarter of 2011 was BDT 563 crores with 24.7% margin compared to BDT 291 crores with 15.0% margin of the third quarter of 2010. Higher profit for this period was mainly due to consistent revenue growth and improvement in relative performance in cost areas, which was partly offset by higher income tax expenses. EBITDA margin for the third quarter of 2011 was 57.8%, which also has increased by 5.9 percentage points compared to the third quarter of 2010.
As a result, Earnings per share (EPS) for the third quarter of 2011 stood at BDT 4.17 compared to BDT 2.15 of the same period of 2010. For the first nine months of 2011, EPS was BDT 9.18 compared to BDT 5.73 for the same period of 2010.
GP invested BDT 449 crores during the third quarter of 2011 for network modernization, capacity and quality enhancement. With this, GP’s cumulative investment since inception now stands at BDT 16,797 crores. Meanwhile, GP, the largest taxpayer of the country, paid BDT 1,308 crores to the national exchequer during the third quarter of 2011 in the form of taxes, VAT and duties, which sums up the accumulated contribution to the national exchequer to BDT 22,153 crores since its inception.
Grameenphone has submitted its application for renewal of 2G license in the prescribed form along with necessary documents on 10 October 2011. The submission was done following the final regulatory and licensing guidelines of cellular mobile phone operator license published by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on 11 September 2011.
Grameenphone has received a claim of BDT 30.34 billion from Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) referring to findings of the audit that the regulator carried out during the last few months starting from April 2011. Grameenphone has, during and after the audit, through discussion and formal letters, contended and clarified to BTRC and the auditor that the acceptable audit norms and practices have not been followed during and after the audit and the claims made remains unfounded, unsubstantiated and without merit. Telenor share Grameenphone’s view that the claims are unsubstantiated and expects that the licence renewal process will run unaffected by this dispute.
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