The country’s second largest telecom operator, Robi Axiata Limited, posted Tk 18.8 crore in profit after tax in the January-March quarter of the year 2020 with a 28-per cent increase in data revenue growth.
In 2019, the mobile phone operator posted Tk 16.9 crore in net profit despite the operator posting Tk 170.7 crore in profit after tax and minority interest (PATAMI) in the third quarter of the year as the telecom entity incurred losses in the rest three quarters of the year.
Robi incurred Tk 24.6 crore in losses in the first quarter last year.
The operator in the second quarter and the fourth quarter incurred Tk 32.2 crore and Tk 96.9 crore in losses respectively.
Robi, a company of around Tk 5,000 crore in paid-up capital, has managed to turn around its businesses in Q1 this year when it announced to get listed on the country’s stock exchanges.
Axiata Group Berhad, a Malaysia-based telecom conglomerate and the controlling shareholder of Robi, in its quarterly report released on Thursday mentioned that Robi managed to attain Tk 1,947.7 crore in revenue during the first quarter this year riding on strong data growth.
In a press release, Axiata president and group chief executive officer Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim said, ‘Overall for the Group, there was limited immediate impact from COVID-19 in the first quarter as demonstrated by good growth in revenue, EBITDA and free cash flow.’
‘This reflects the hard and fast execution of our Operational Excellence initiatives,’ he said.
‘As such, in terms of underlying performance, I am encouraged by XL’s continued growth trajectory in revenue and EBITDA, fuelled by data monetisation,’ Ibrahim said, adding that Robi also experienced yet another excellent quarter with expansion recorded across all key metrics boosted by data upsurge and lower network related cost, and therefore, was now back to black.
In Q1 this year, Robi’s revenue increased by 6.48 per cent, or Tk 118.6 crore, from Tk 1,829.1 crore in Q1, 2019.
With a 28.8-per cent growth, the operator’s data revenue increased to Tk 642.74 crore in Q1, 2020 against Tk 512.15 crore in the same period last year.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) and average revenue per user (ARPU) of the telecom operator also increased by 10.1 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively.
The operator’s EBITDA stood at Tk 787.1 crore and ARPU stood at Tk 124.
Average data usage by each Robi subscriber stood at 2.49 gigabytes (GB) in Q1 this year from 1.62 GBs during the same period last year.
The subscriber base of Robi increased to 4.97 crore at the end of Q1 this year from 4.73 crore a year ago.
Of the subscribers, 4.91 crore subscribers were pre-paid service users and the rest 6.65 lakh subscribers were post-paid service users.
Axiata also mentioned that the telecom conglomerate had posted PAT at RM398.3 million in Q1.
Source: https://www.newagebd.net/article/106974/robi-posts-tk-188cr-in-profit-in-q1