Robi’s growth momentum continues amidst growing macroeconomic and regulatory challenges
Dhaka, July 29, 2024: Despite the growing macroeconomic and regulatory challenges, Robi’s growth momentum continued in Q2’24 (April- June, 2024). The company released its financial performance for the quarter through a press handout today.
Robi’s active subscribers base reached 5 crore 95 lakhs, out of which 4 crore 54 lakhs were internet users, and 3 crore 76 lakhs were 4G users. In relation to the total active subscribers’ base, 76.3% were internet users, and 63% were 4G users. Having added 325 new 4G sites, Robi’s total 4G site count reached 17,715 by the end of Q2’24 ensuring 98.93% population coverage.
Robi registered 2,604 crore taka revenue in Q2’24 following a jump of 3.5% from last quarter; year-on-Year (YoY) revenue grew by 2.5%. Including the Q1’24 (Jan-March, 2024) revenue, Robi’s total revenue for the first six months of this year (H1’24) was 5,120.2 crore taka. Compared to H1’23 (Jan-June, 2023), H1’24 (Jan-June, 2024) revenue went up by 4.8%.
Voice and data revenue grew by 7.7% and 2.5% respectively, compared to the last quarter. YoY voice revenue grew by 0.6% and data revenue by 12.7%, while the average data usage per subscriber per month went up by 12% YoY.
Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) reached 1,223 crore taka in Q2’24 with 47% margin. Increased network operation cost due to adverse climatic condition, such as, Cyclone Remal and the flood in the Sylhet region and increased cost from the raised SIM tax adversely impacted the EBITDA performance.
As a result, compared to Q1’24, EBITDA grew marginally by 0.2% and the EBITDA margin de-grew marginally by 1.5 percentage points. YoY EBITDA grew by 14.8% with five percentage points improvement in margin.
Capex investment stood at 676.9 crore taka for Q2’24. Including the capex for Q1’24, the total Capex for H1’24 reached 1,043.1 crore taka. Profit After Tax (PAT) for Q2’24 was 107.5 crore taka; including the Q1’24 PAT, the total PAT for H1’24 reached 214.2 crore taka. Earnings Per Share (EPS) for Q2’24 stood at 0.21 taka, following a growth of 0.8%; YoY EPS grew by 341.25%.
Robi paid 1,689.3 crore taka to the Government exchequer in Q2’24 which was 64.9% of the revenue earned by the company. Including the Q1’24 payment, Robi’s total payment to the Government exchequer for H1’24 stood at 3,294.9 crore taka which was 64.4% of Robi’s revenue for the period.
Commenting on Robi’s financial performance, Robi’s Managing Director and CEO, Rajeev Sethi said: “Despite the economic woes and the mounting regulatory challenges, we are happy to see Robi continuing on the growth trajectory. We have continued to invest heavily in our network to ensure quality experience for our customers’ rapidly growing data consumption. Unfortunately, the significant taka devaluation that took place due to the introduction of crawling peg method for currency exchange rate adjustment and the rising borrowing cost had knocked off a large chunk of our profit for the quarter, despite razor-sharp focus on efficient cost management.”
Speaking on the ongoing drive for Quality of Services (QoS) from the Regulator, he added: “We welcome the closer scrutiny from the Regulator on improving QoS for our subscribers. I am happy to note that Robi is consistently offering better quality than what is expected as per the QoS regulation. As a customer centric company, we are fully committed to collaborate with the Regulator to ensure world class quality for our customers in light of the existing QoS regulation.”