Robi's quarterly profit rises fourfold

Robi Axiata PLC has registered a hefty jump in its profits in the second quarter of 2024 mainly depending on higher sales and lower spending for raw materials.

The country's second largest telecom company's profit hit Tk 107 crore in the April-June period of this year, which is over four times higher from last year same period's Tk 24 crore.

"Despite the economic woes and the mounting regulatory challenges, we are happy to see Robi continuing on the growth trajectory," said Rajeev Sethi Managing Director and CEO of Robi.

The company has continued to invest heavily in its network to ensure quality experience for its customers, as data consumption by its users is growing rapidly.

Unfortunately, the significant taka devaluation that took place due to the introduction of crawling peg method for currency exchange rate adjustment and the rising borrowing cost had knocked off a large chunk of Robi's profit for the quarter, despite razor-sharp focus on efficient cost management, Sethi said.

His comment was published in a press release released today.

Robi's foreign exchange loss was Tk 47 crore in the three months to June this year while it was Tk 6 crore in the same period of 2023.

According to the financial report of the company, its sales rose while costs of revenue or raw materials dropped, which contributed to a rise in profits.

Robi's revenue increased 2.5 percent year-on-year to Tk 2,604 crore in the second quarter when its cost of revenue fell 13 percent year-on-year to Tk 1,482 crore.

Cost of revenue includes costs for SIM card, scratch card, devices, interconnection and roaming charges, network operation and maintenance expenses etc.

The mobile phone operator's active subscriber base reached 5 crore 95 lakh, out of which 4 crore 54 lakh were internet users, and 3 crore 76 lakh 4G users.

Of the total active subscribers' base, 76.3 percent were internet users, according to the company's press release.