Robi losses linger
Robi, the country's second largest mobile operator, failed to register profit for the third consecutive quarter, counting net losses of Tk 103 crore in the first quarter of 2018 despite favourable growth in subscriber base and revenue.
In the previous two quarters, Robi logged in losses of Tk 46.90 crore and Tk 134.80 crore respectively. Intense competition on both data and voice pricing caused the losses, said Shahed Alam, executive vice-president and head of regulatory affairs at Robi.
“At present, the data price is not regulated. As a result, we are forced to sell data below the production cost,” he added. The operator also blamed the losses on the additional expenditure of 4G rollout, the increased borrowing rate in the market and the prevailing high tax regime.
Robi rolled out 4G service in all 64 districts on February 20. It has more than 5,000 4G-enabled sites with nearly 20 lakh active users. The operator registered Tk 1,627.8 crore as gross revenue for the January-March period, up 5.22 percent year-on-year.
Its active subscribers base grew 6.3 percent quarter-on-quarter to reach 4.56 crore, out of which 2.53 crore are internet users. As of March, about 40 percent subscribers are using smartphone in Robi's network, though the market average is about 35 percent.
Robi's data users consume 803MB every month on average as data consumption increased at a phenomenal rate after the launch of 4G services.
“As of now, we are very near to achieving the two million 4G subscriber milestone,” said Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, Robi's managing director and chief executive officer, in a statement.
It has contributed about Tk 680 crore to the government exchequer in the first quarter of the year, according to Axiata, Robi's parent company.
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