First Half of 2015 for Grameenphone Ltd. at a glance
- Adverse effect of political turmoil and intense price competition
- BDT 51.5 billion revenues, 0.7% YoY growth
- 1.6 million new subscription taking total base to 53.1 million
- Net profit after taxes BDT 10.5 billion with 20.4% margin and BDT 7.76 EPS
- BDT 10.1 billion investment mainly for 3G network coverage and capacity enhancement
Grameenphone Ltd. reported revenue of BDT 51.5 billion for the first half of 2015, up 0.7% from the same period last year. Service revenue (excluding IC) grew by 0.2% (YoY) along with 2.9% (YoY) de-growth in device and 13.8% (YoY) growth in other revenues mainly generated by infrastructure sharing and mobile financial services. Growth in service revenue was mainly driven by data and VAS.
During this first half of 2015, GP acquired 1.6 million new subscriptions, taking the year-end subscription base to 53.1 million. This constitutes 7.9% subscription growth (YoY) with SIM market share of 41.9%(as of May’15). Data subscriber no stood at 13.4 Mn with encouraging volume growth.
“We experienced marginal growth from last year with initial setback from intense price competition and political turmoil during 1st quarter 2105. As hinted last time, we are actually observing gradual recovery from end of 1st quarter with our simplification initiatives in improving usability experience and network superiority”, said Rajeev Sethi, CEO of Grameenphone Ltd. He added, “I am happy to announce that Grameenphone Board of Directors declared interim dividend at the rate of 80% of paid up capital. This can be considered as a reflection of GP’s commitment towards creating value for its shareholders.”
Net profit after taxes for the first half was BDT 10.5 billion with 20.4% margin compared to BDT 10.6 billion with 20.7% margin of the corresponding period of 2014. Efficiency in operating expenditure resulted in higher EBITDA (before other items) growth of 1.1% compared to the revenue growth of 0.7%. EBITDA margin also saw an improvement of 0.2 percentage points to 54%. Earnings per share (EPS) for the period stood at BDT 7.76 with 0.9% drop due to higher depreciation & amortization partly offset by lower finance expense.
“We managed to secure profitable growth amidst the muted top line performance during the period. We are hopeful that our focus on granular level approach towards operations will add more value to the business going forward,” said Dilip Pal, CFO of Grameenphone Ltd.
GP invested BDT 10.1 billion during the 1st half for further rollout of 3G sites, 2G coverage, capacity enhancement for catering higher volume of data and voice as well as enhancement of IT infrastructure for better product and service offerings. Meanwhile, GP, the largest contributor to exchequer paid BDT 25 billion, comprising 48.6% of total revenue to the national exchequer during the period in the form of taxes, VAT, duties and license fees.
The Board of Directors has declared interim dividend in cash at the rate of 80% of the paid up capital (BDT 8 per share of BDT 10 each) for the year 2015 out of the provisional net profit of the company for the half year ended at 30 June 2015 and retained earnings up to 31 December 2014. This dividend represents 103% of the after tax profit for the half year ended at 30 June 2015. The Shareholders as of the record date of 29 July 2015 will be entitled for this dividend, which will be distributed within the timeframe stipulated by the regulators.