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Robi turns a profit after seven quarters

Muhammad Zahidul Islam
Robi bounced back to profitability in the third quarter of the year after seven straight quarters of losses, helped by the sell-off of its 20 percent stakes in the telecom infrastructure provider edotco Bangladesh.
Between the months of July and September, the mobile operator, which is Bangladesh's second biggest, logged in a net profit ofTk 310 crore.
This is the first quarter in which Robi was in the green after its industry-shaping merger with Airtel in November 2016.
"We still can't turn in profits solely
from our core business," said a senior official of Robi requesting anonymity.
Robi sold 20 percent of its shares in edotco Bangladesh to Axiata
Group for about $120 million, the payment for which was received in September. The one-off payment dragged Robi to profitability.
"So this is not profit in the true sense. It's just that our accounts were in the positive zone because of the handsome one-off payment. But, we are very close to logging in profit."
Robi's operating losses have come down after their service level has increased following the merger, he added.
The operator's service revenue increased 9.1 percent year-on-year, according to the financial report of Axiata Group, its parent company.
During the quarter, Robi's gross revenue was Tk 1,751.85 crore, 25 percent of which came from the data segment. The data revenue soared 31 percent, thanks in part to the rollout of 4G service in February.
Robi has 4.68 crore active mobile connections, 40 percent of which are using smartphones. More than 60 percent use data.
During the quarter Robi's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation also increased 31.1 percent to Tk 468.80 crore thanks to the windfall from edotco
stake sell-off.
The EBITDA growth was driven by lower material cost and reduction in the interconnect charges from the second week of August.
The regulator has also introduced a unified floor rate regime under which the floor rates applicable to on-net and off-net voice tariffs were unified at Tk 0.45.
This gave a boost to the average revenue per user, which rose to Tk 122 per month during the quarter from Tk 117 in the previous quarter.