GP profit slips amid Covid-19 fallouts
Grameenphone's net profit tumbled 23.87 per cent year-on-year in the next quarter of 2020 as a result of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
The largest cellular phone operator of Bangladesh took home Tk 726.55 crore in profit after taxes in April-June, down from Tk 955.28 crore in the same period a year ago.
This had been the cheapest single-quarter net profit for GP in recent times. It witnessed 8.2 per cent year-on-year revenue de-growth in the second quarter to Tk 3,306.9 crore.
"The next quarter of 2020 have been challenging for Grameenphone as we experienced a standard slowdown of the economy due to the general holidays," said Jens Becker, chief financial officer of the operator, in a news release.
For days gone by four months, the operator has been exceptional impact of an unprecedented global pandemic, which includes compelled it to drastically change just how it worked and served customers.
"In addition to Covid-19, we've experienced impact from challenging weather and regulatory scenario, which combined has driven us to de-growth inside our performance compared to last year," said Yasir Azman, chief executive officer of GP.
"While we've had our fair share of struggles, as an important service, we prioritised in ensuring uninterrupted services for our customers in the united states."
The fall in earnings impacted the wages per share: it stood at Tk 5.38 in the quarter, down from Tk 7.07 in the same period last year.
GP recommended 130 per cent interim cash dividend for 2020 and the shareholders as of the record date of August 5 will be eligible for it.
The stocks of the largest-listed company in the united states traded 0.92 per cent higher at Tk 241.30 on the Dhaka STOCK MARKET yesterday.
At the end of June, the quantity of active users for the operator declined to 7.45 crore, which was 7.65 crore at the start of the year.
Of the full total active users, 54.8 per cent, or 4.08 crore, use internet. Customers' average monthly data use went up to 2.6 gigabytes.
GP raked in Tk 840 crore from internet data use in the quarter, up 16.66 % from Tk 720 crore year-on-year.
It, however, fell from the January-March quarter when it earned Tk 850 crore. This was the first time the wages from data consumption declined quarter-to-quarter.
The market leader's income is poised for a brand new blow from the 3rd quarter as 'significant market power' restrictions have been imposed on the operator out of this month.
Market sources say as all telecom carriers reduced data price carrying out a government request following the coronavirus pandemic hit the united states, data earnings were impacted.
In the first days of the lockdown, which started on March 26, it was tough for the users to top up cell phones as shops needed to be shut due to the movement control order. Due to this fact, earnings from voice call also declined for all operators.
Monthly earnings per customer came right down to Tk 146 for GP, from Tk 159 during the same period this past year.
Despite the challenges, the carrier were able to add 90 lakh users to its 4G network through the quarter to get rid of at 1.52 crore.
It set up 132 new 4G/LTE sites within the last three months, bringing in 77.1 % of the population under the coverage of the most effective data network.
