Telecom operator Robi Axiata's profit rose 78% year-on-year to Tk 188.7 crore in the July-September quarter of the 2023-24 fiscal year, thanks to significant cost optimisation.

However, the company's revenue declined by 5 percent in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter due to the prolonged internet shutdown and devastating countrywide flash floods, Robi said in a statement.

The company reported a revenue of Tk 2,474.4 crore in the July-September period, reflecting a year-on-year decrease of 2.7 percent.

However, its revenue reached Tk 7,594.6 crore in the first nine months of the year, marking a 2.2 percent year-on-year growth.

In Q3, voice revenue increased by 3.7 percent, while data revenue saw a significant decline of 15.5 percent compared to the previous quarter.

Voice revenue grew by 3.9 percent year-on-year, while data revenue decreased by 10.3 percent.

The company's active subscriber base decreased to 5.79 crore due to the overall downturn in the economy. Out of the active subscriber base, 4.43 crore were internet users, and 3.7 crore were 4G users.

With 249 new sites, Robi's total 4G site count reached close to 18,000 by the end of Q3'24, covering 98.96 percent of the population.

The company's earnings per share for Q3 stood at Tk 0.36, posting a growth of 75.5 percent from the last quarter.

Robi paid Tk 1,346.1 crore to the government exchequer in the July-September quarter, which corresponds to 54 percent of the revenue earned by the company.

"We have faced unprecedented times during the July-September period," said Rajeev Sethi, CEO of Robi.

"Eleven days of internet shutdown during the people's uprising, followed by the onslaught of flash floods of unforeseen proportions, really shook the economy hard," he said.

"Naturally, this impacted our revenue negatively as a large number of data users left our network. In the end, it was our cost efficiency program that helped us end the quarter on a positive note with some profit."

The Robi CEO was also very optimistic about the recent reform initiatives initiated by the telecom regulator to re-evaluate the telecom ecosystem.

He pledged to fully cooperate with the regulator to devise a win-win strategy for executing the reform agenda to reshape the telecom ecosystem in Bangladesh.

He highlighted that Robi paid 61 percent of its revenue for the January-September period to the government.

He stressed that such a heavy taxation regime is hurting the company's financial strength to continue its investment in building the best data network in the country.