Robi’s revenue up by 35.8pc in nine months

Robi Axiata Limited’s revenue grew by 35.8 per cent to Tk 52.53 billion for the financial period ended 30 September 2017.

According to the company, revenue grew due to increased subscriber base from merged Robi-Airtel venture and a strong performance in data segment that grew by 96.6 per cent year over year for YTD’17.

However, net profit reported a loss of Tk 1.58 billion in YTD’17 compared to a profit of Tk 385.8 million in the same period of 2016.

The impact came from higher depreciation and amortisation charges from the compnay’s enlarged assets base and new CAPEX (capital expenditure) investments.

Operating profit or EBITDA also recorded a net drop of 22.6 per cent due to the deconsolidation of edotco Bangladesh and inclusion of lower margin business operations from the Airtel business during the nine-month period, as per the company financials.

In the third quarter of 2017, revenue grew by 28.4 per cent from the merged Robi-Airtel entity driven by larger subscriber base and performance in data segment which also registered 83.3 per cent growth compared to the corresponding quarter last year.

Operating profit decreased toTk 4.01 billion in the third quarter of 2017, a 11.3 per cent decline from last year’s same quarter. Profit after tax also decreased by more than 100 per cent to Tk 479.2 million in third quarter of this year, as per company financials.

Robi’s subscriber and revenue market share rose to 29.3 per cent and 28.0 per cent in the third quarter of 2017, respectively, as per the financial report. YTD17 data revenue grew by 88.9 per cent quarter over quarter, accounting for 18.6 per cent of total revenue.

Robi Axiata ltd’s post-merger subscriber base market share in March 2017 was 27.62 per cent which grew to 29.29 per cent at the end of September 2017.

The changes of market share of subscriber base of all the active telecom operators in 2017 are given below -

Source: BTRC website

 (Conversion rate used, RM 1 = BDT 19.48, as per September 30, 2017)