Home ›› 29 Jul 2021 ›› Stock
Robi Axiata, the second largest mobile operator in Bangladesh, expressed deep concern over the unhealthy competitions, higher corporate tax and regulatory complexity which create obstacles in the way of doing business and further growth.
Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, chief executive officer and managing director of Robi, made the remark while addressing a virtual press briefing on Wednesday, organized to disclose the company’s financial statement for the first half of 2020.
“We are very happy to see that our digital vision has already started to contribute significantly to our financial performance. However, lack of effective implementation of the SMP regulation and the regulatory landscape continues to concern us,” said Mahtab Uddin Ahmed.
Mahtab observed that the overall competitive distortions are pushing the market to the brink of failure, and such fragile state of the competitive landscape is making it difficult to achieve the condition of economic efficiency.
Distorted price mechanism and distribution system are undermining consumers’ interest and weakening the telecom industry to the detriment of the Digital Bangladesh vision, he adds.
He also stressed that for a market to operate efficiently, no single entity should be allowed to dictate the price and output decisions.
However, in our market, the presence of significant monopoly power is discouraging the competition from investing in innovative digital technologies that are crucial to the future of the country, he added.
Speaking on the financial performance of the company, Mahtab said, “We are efficiently managing our cost while continuing with experiments with innovative digital technologies to proof future of the company.”
He mentioned that 2 per cent minimum turnover tax for telecom industry is one of the big barriers for this sector. In last budget (FY22), the government avoided the demand to cut tax from the telecom industry.
Mahtab Uddin also claimed that if the government cut the turnover tax, the Robi can give more dividends to its shareholders and they will be economically benefitted.
The Robi boss mentioned its contribution to the government exchequer of Tk 1,138 crore, which is 56 per cent of the company’s total revenue for the quarter.
He questioned whether justice is being ensured to them after paying a big amount of taxes to the government.
Financial Performance in HI
In the press meet, Mahtab Uddin presented the Quarter-2 (April-June’21) financial statement of Robi.
The company gained around Tk 50 crore in profit for half year. However, its earning per share of Quarter-2 has decreased than the same period of the last fiscal year.
If there was no turnover tax this profit would be stood at Tk 86 crore, added Riyaaz Rasheed, chief financial officer of the company, while answering to a question during the online briefing.
In the Quarter-2 period, Robi has 5.18 crore active subscribers with 29.4 per cent of total market share while it has 3.75 crore internet subscribers, which is 72.4 per cent of the total subscriber base and earned revenue of Tk 2,031 crore which is 2.5 per cent higher than the last quarter.
Compared to the Quarter-1 (January-March’21), Robi’s 4G subscriber base grew by 7.5 per cent in the Quarter-2. However, compared to the same quarter of the last year, its 4G subscriber base grew by 65 per cent.
Robi made investment of Tk 584 crore in the Q2’21 to expand its 4G network. The company had 13,545 4G sites at the end of Q2’21 ensuring 98 per cent population coverage.
Robi’s Chief Corporate and Regulator Officer Shahed Alam and high officials of the company were present at the press briefing.
