Grameen Phone the largest telecom company in Bangladesh has recently its Q1 financial report for the year 2021. Revenue of the company in Q1’21 was Tk 34,813 million compared to Tk 36,169 million in Q1’20. Revenue declined by 3.7 % YoY mainly driven by a decline in subscription & traffic revenue. Although internet subscribers increased by 1.7 million, data revenue also decreased by 4.4% YoY. Profit after tax in Q1’21 declined by 16.7% YoY to Tk 890.6 million due to lower foreign exchange gain and higher tax expense due to one-off adjustment.
Average Revenue per User (ARPU) has been on a declining trend mainly due to the rise in OTT platforms like Whatsapp, Messenger, Imo, etc, and economic uncertainty for the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mobile Subscribers
Mobile subscribers of the company have grown by 7.2% YoY from 75.3 million in Q1’20 to 80.7 million in Q1’21. About 51.6% of the total subscribers are internet subscribers. Internet subscribers have grown from 40.4 million in Q1’20 to 41.7 million in Q1’21. The higher growth in internet subscribers shows the shift of focus of the company towards data revenue.
Data Revenue
Data revenue declined by 4.4% YoY mainly due to a 6.8% decrease in data ARPU. Internet subscribers have increased by 3.2% YoY from 40.4 million to 41.7 million. Internet consumption per user has increased by 31.3% due to increased 4G sites and different promotional offers related to data. MB per subscribers was 2,921 MB in Q1’21 which was 2,225 MB in Q1’20.
Read More: Robi Q1’2021 Performance Review
Future Ahead
The continuous decline in voice revenue and the pandemic situation forced the telecom companies to look for growth from data. About 23.6% of Grameen Phone’s total revenue was contributed by data service and 51.6% of the total subscribers are internet users. Hence Grameen Phone has room for further growth in this segment by leveraging the highest subscriber base and largest 4G sites in Bangladesh.
Source: Grameen Phone Q’21 Financial Report
