BP Business Desk
Grameenphone Ltd. reported total revenues of TK 33.1 billion for the second quarter of 2020, registering an 8.2 percent de-growth from the same period last year.
Net profit after taxes (NPAT) for the second quarter was TK 7.3 billion, with 22.0 percent margin. Earnings per share (EPS) for the period stood at TK 5.38. The operator reported 74.5 Mn total customers, of which 54.8 percent, or 40.8 Mn, are internet customers.
“For the past four months, we have been experiencing the impact of an unprecedented global pandemic which has driven us to drastically change our way of work and how we serve our customers.
In addition to COVID-19, we have experienced impact from challenging weather and regulatory scenario, all of which combined has driven us to a de-growth in our performance compared to last year.” said Yasir Azman, CEO of Grameenphone Ltd.
“While we have had our fair share of struggles, as an essential service, we prioritized in ensuring uninterrupted services for our customers across the country.
“We worked relentlessly with our partners, stakeholders, law enforcement and local communities during severe weather conditions, resulting in fast recovery from network outage post Cyclone Amphan.”
Azman said, “As a part of our COVID-19 responses we have taken several initiatives including our partnership with BRAC for “Dakche Amar Desh” which enabled us to provide emergency food assistance to 100,000 affected families.
We supported hospitals with medical grade PPEs for front line doctors. Having focused on transformation and modernization of our organization over the past few years, we have been able to rapidly adapt to our new way of work, allowing our employees to safely work from home with digital enablement so that we can continue our responsibilities as a listed essential service during this pandemic.”
“The second quarter of 2020 has been challenging for Grameenphone as we experienced an overall slow-down of economy due to the general holidays which started to gradually recover from May,” said Jens Becker, CFO of Grameenphone Ltd. “We experienced de-growth in subscription and traffic revenues, even though data revenue stayed on track.
Our commitment remains to investing in the country and using our technology expertise to aide the government in battling COVID-19. We are pleased to announce that the Grameenphone Board of Directors declared interim dividend at the rate of 130 percent of paid up capital.”
During the second quarter, Grameenphone Ltd. invested TK 2.5 Bn for network coverage, adding 132 new 4G sites to their network. The total number of sites stands at 16,557. The company has paid TK 46.4 Bn equaling 67 percent of its total revenues, to the national exchequer in the form of taxes, VAT, duties, fees, 4G license and spectrum assignment.