Bangladesh’s two listed mobile operators reported third-quarter numbers this week that point in the same direction: data is now carrying the industry. Grameenphone, the market leader, said revenue rose again in July–September after falling in the first half of the year. Robi Axiata, the second-largest operator, delivered another quarter of profit growth on the back of rising internet use.
Neither company is out of the woods. Grameenphone’s nine-month profit is still below last year’s, and Robi’s margins remain thin compared with its larger rival. But the quarter offers the clearest sign in some time that gains in subscribers and usage are starting to show up in revenue.
A turn at Grameenphone, steady gains at Robi
Grameenphone booked revenue of about Tk4,016 crore and net profit of about Tk751 crore in the third quarter, according to its stock exchange disclosure. For January to September, revenue came to roughly Tk11,766 crore, slightly below Tk11,948 crore a year earlier, while profit slipped to Tk2,171 crore from Tk2,264 crore. Nine-month earnings per share fell to Tk16.08 from Tk16.77.
The direction matters more than the totals. Revenue declined in each of the first two quarters before turning up in the third. Telenor, the operator’s Norwegian parent, said service revenue rose 0.3% on an organic basis and that Grameenphone added 0.6 million subscribers during the quarter, taking its base to 86.8 million. Chief financial officer Otto Risbakk credited a larger customer base, stronger data performance and better voice minutes, saying “the positive trends we saw in subscribers and usage are now translating into revenue.”
Robi’s story is one of steadier growth. Its third-quarter revenue rose about 7% from a year earlier to Tk2,686 crore, and profit after tax came to Tk251 crore, a margin of roughly 9.4%. Over nine months the company earned Tk746.5 crore on revenue of Tk7,929 crore, with profit up around 19% year on year. At the end of September it counted 5.92 crore active subscribers, of whom 4.68 crore used the internet and 4.28 crore were on 4G, about 72% of its active base.
Robi spent Tk342 crore on its network in the quarter and Tk1,413 crore over nine months. It also said its payments to the government reached Tk4,975 crore in the first nine months of the year, including Tk700 crore in the third quarter alone, equal to about 26% of that quarter’s revenue.
What it means here
For customers, the results confirm that operators now see 4G data, not voice calls, as their main engine of growth. That usually translates into more bundled data packs, sharper competition on internet offers and continued investment in 4G coverage; Robi says it now runs more than 19,000 4G sites. It also gives operators a strong reason to move users from older handsets to 4G devices, which keeps the price of entry-level smartphones firmly on the policy agenda.
For the government, the numbers are a reminder of how much the sector contributes to the treasury. When roughly a quarter of an operator’s quarterly revenue flows back to the state, decisions on tax, spectrum pricing and licensing directly shape how much money is left for network upgrades and how quickly data prices can come down.
For investors on the Dhaka bourse, the quarter strengthens the case that the telecom sector has steadied after a difficult stretch. Grameenphone, however, will need a stronger fourth quarter to close the gap with last year, and the company says building on the third-quarter momentum is now its focus.
