Bangladesh's Grameenphone revenue up 9.4% in Q3

Bangladesh's biggest mobile phone operator Grameenphone (GP) Saturday reported a 9.4 percent increase in revenues for the third quarter of 2013 against that in the same period a year ago. The company, which is listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange in Bangladesh, said in a press release that the revenue was 25 billion taka for July-September period of 2013. It said the cellphone operator managed this growth amid competition, sluggish economic activity, apprehension of political unrest and respite from strong tailwind of Muslim religious festival Eid. The growth is attributed to increase in traffic, induced by attractive recharge based campaign and rate cutter promotions, it added. Growth in interconnection minutes, higher device sales and adjacent business also contributed significantly, said the GP statement. It said the company also secured 3G spectrum of 10 MHz spectrum in the 2100 MHz-band in an auction held in September this year. During the quarter, GP added 2.07 million subscriptions, taking the quarter-end subscription base to over 46 million along with maintaining the subscription market share. With its 46.04 million customers, it said GP, 55.8 percent owned by Norwegian telecom company Telenor and 34.2 percent owned by local Grameen Telecom, is the largest telecom operator in Bangladesh and has a strong legacy of providing mobile services to all parts of the country. "I am pleased to present the third quarter results to our honorable shareholders, where GP has managed to be in a forward leaning position with revitalized market machineries to secure the fair share of growth being generated from the market," Vivek Sood, chief executive officer of GP was quoted as saying in the statement. He added, "I am also excited to begin the new data centric era providing internet for all and enabling people to improve their lives with power of digital communication. With the advent of 3G this vision will be ever more possible to realize." According to the statement, the net profit after taxes for the quarter was 5.7 billion taka with 22.9 percent margin compared to 3.2 billion taka with 13.8 percent margin for the 3rd quarter of 2012. Profit soared due to higher revenue, lower operating expense induced by lower subscriber acquisition cost from SIM tax reduction, lower consultancy and one time effect of gain on disposal of shares in GPIT, it said. GP invested 19.6 billion taka during the third quarter of 2013 on its superior network along with acquisition of 10 MHz of 3G spectrum to cater the data centric era, it added. With this, according to the statement, GP's cumulative investment since inception stands at 236 billion taka. GP was set up in March of 1997 by 2006 Nobel peace prize winner, Bangladeshi Muhammad Yunus.(1 U.S. dollar equals to 78 taka)