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 on July 30.
Robi’s active subscriber base reached 5 crore 95 lakhs, out of which 4 crore 54 lakhs were internet users, and 3 crore 76 lakhs were 4G users.
With the total active subscribers base, 76.3 per cent were internet users, and 63 per cent 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 per cent population coverage.
Robi registered Tk 2,604 crore revenue in Q2’24 following a jump of 3.5 per cent from last quarter; year-on-year (YoY) revenue grew by 2.5 per cent.
Including the Q1’24 (Jan-March, 2024) revenue, Robi’s total revenue for the first six months of this year (H1’24) was Tk 5,120.2 crore. Compared to H1’23 (Jan-June, 2023), H1’24 (Jan-June, 2024) revenue went up by 4.8 per cent.
Voice and data revenue grew by 7.7 per cent and 2.5 per cent respectively, compared to the last quarter. YoY voice revenue grew by 0.6 per cent and data revenue by 12.7 per cent, while the average data usage per subscriber per month went up by 12 per cent YoY.
Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) reached 1,223 crore taka in Q2’24 with a 47 per cent margin. Increased network operation costs due to adverse climatic conditions, such as Cyclone Remal and the flood in the Sylhet region and increased costs from the raised SIM tax adversely impacted the EBITDA performance.
As a result, compared to Q1’24, EBITDA grew marginally by 0.2 per cent and the EBITDA margin de-grew marginally by 1.5 percentage points. YoY EBITDA grew by 14.8 per cent with a five percentage point 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 Tk 107.5 crore; including the Q1’24 PAT, the total PAT for H1’24 reached Tk 214.2 crore. Earnings Per Share (EPS) for Q2’24 stood at 0.21 taka, following a growth of 0.8 per cent; YoY EPS grew by 341.25 per cent.
Robi paid Tk 1,689.3 crore to the Government exchequer in Q2’24 which was 64.9 per cent 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 Tk 3,294.9 crore which was 64.4 per cent 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 a quality experience for our customers’ rapidly growing data consumption. Unfortunately, the significant taka devaluation that took place due to the introduction of the crawling peg method for currency exchange rate adjustment and the rising borrowing cost knocked off a large chunk of our profit for the quarter, despite the 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 collaborating with the Regulator to ensure world-class quality for our customers in light of the existing QoS regulation.”
