Grameenphone’s net profit drops 28% in Q2

Despite achieving a 5.6% year-on-year revenue growth, Grameenphone, the country’s largest mobile operator, recorded a 27.88% decline in net profit for the April-June quarter of 2024.

Nevertheless, it declared a 160% interim cash dividend, equivalent to Tk16 per share, according to a press statement by the company today (16 July).

In this quarter, the company achieved revenue of Tk4,223 crore, which is 5.6% higher than Tk4,000 crore compared to the same period of the previous year.

Over the three months, its net profit stood at Tk861 crore, down from Tk1,194 crore in the April-June quarter of last year.

At the end of the second quarter, its earnings per share (EPS) stood at Tk6.38 which was Tk8.84 in the previous quarter.

In the January to June period of 2024, its revenue stood at Tk8,156 crore, which was Tk7,736 crore a year ago.

The year-on-year profit growth in the first quarter helped the company post a higher net profit of Tk2,199 crore, which was Tk1,973 crore a year ago.

According to the press statement, Grameenphone had 23 lakh new subscribers in the second quarter. The total number of subscribers reached 8.53 crore by the end of June this year.

Out of the total subscribers, 58.3%, or 4.97 crore, are using internet services. This shows the company’s growth in subscribers and the significant percentage of users who are Internet subscribers.

On Tuesday, the company’s shares traded at Tk249.30 on the Dhaka Stock Exchange.

Yasir Azman, CEO of Grameenphone, said, “The macroeconomic headwinds that have been prevalent since last year exacerbated due to central banks’ continued tightening policies, calibration of energy prices while reducing subsidies, increase of supplementary duties and the effects of natural disasters such as cyclones and flood.”

“Despite these challenges, we remained focused on our growth strategies and showed stability in our performance by delivering consistent growth in topline and EBITDA [ earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation]. Our MyGP app continues to be the largest local self-service app in Bangladesh with now a staggering 20 million monthly active users,” he added.

“We are now through the first half of the year, and I am pleased to see that after a good Q1, we continue to see good progress across all metrics and segments in this quarter as well,” Yasir added.