Forex loss dealt a heavy blow on Robi’s financials as it knocked off 49% of its profit after tax (PAT) in 2022. Instead of around 361 crore taka, Robi could only book 182.7 crore taka as PAT for the year; which means around 179 crore taka was lost as PAT due to this reason. Robi disclosed this while releasing its financial results for 2022 on Sunday.

Robi continued to enjoy 4G leadership position in 2022 with 53% of its total subscribers being 4G users. Around 76% of Robi’s subscriber base were data users in 2022, which was the highest in the industry. Robi ensured 98.3% population coverage of its 4G network with around 16,000 4G sites at the end of 2022. Compared to 2021, data usage per subscriber, per month, increased by around 36%. In 2022, each Robi data subscriber consumed 5.5GB data every month on an average.

Robi’s subscriber base grew by around 1.4% compared to 2021 to reach 5 crore 44 lakhs at the end of 2022, representing 30% of the subscriber market share; on the other hand, data subscriber base grew by 4% in 2022 to reach 4 crore 11 lakhs. Meanwhile, compared to 2021, Robi’s 4G subscriber base grew by 21% to reach 2 crore 89 lakhs.

With 2,254.3 crore taka revenue in Q4’22, Robi’s revenue in 2022 reached 8,586 crore taka. Compared to 2021, revenue rose by 5.4% in 2022. Compared to Q4’21, revenue rose by 10% in Q4’22.

Voice revenue in 2022 increased by 9%. Compared to Q4’21, voice revenue rose by 7% in Q4’22. Data revenue increased by around 2%, compared to 2021. Compared to Q4’21, data revenue rose by 16% in Q4’22. Including 384.4 crore taka CAPEX investment in Q4’22, Robi’s total CAPEX investment for 2022 reached 1,530 crore taka.

Including 126 crore taka Profit After Tax (PAT) in Q4’ 22, Robi ended 2022 with 182.7 crore taka PAT, which is around 1.3% higher than 2021.

EBITDA in Q4’22 was 1,066.4 crore taka (with 47% margin), while the EBITDA for 2022 reached 3,854.3 crore taka (with 45% margin), marking a rise of 16.5% compared to 2021.

Robi’s total contribution to the Government exchequer reached 4,816 crore taka in 2022, including 1,366 crore taka in Q4’22. Robi contributed 60% of its revenue in Q4’22 and 56% of its revenue in 2022 to the Government exchequer.

The company’s earnings per share (EPS) in Q4’22 was 0.25 taka; EPS for 2022 was 0.35 taka, which was around 1.3% higher than 2021. Had we not lost nearly half of our PAT to forex loss, our EPS for 2022 would have been 0.67 taka, which would have been 96% higher than 2021.

Robi’s Board of Directors have recommended cash dividend at the rate of 7% (i.e. BDT 0.70 per share), which represents 200.7% of the PAT for 2022. The decision was taken at the Board Meeting held on 16th February, 2022. Robi’s 27th Annual General Meeting is scheduled to be held on 25th April, 2022.

Commenting on the financial performance of the company, Robi’s CEO, Rajeev Sethi said: “Forex loss has deprived us from a stellar year; our moment of glory was snatched away when PAT literally halved due to forex loss. On top of that, application of 2% minimum tax felt like the last nail in the coffin as far as our PAT for the year was concerned. On the positive side, we managed to make significant gains out of our optimized cost structure.

Going forward we will continue to leverage cost optimization to strengthen our bottom-line.”

Raising concern over the unsustainability of the data business, he said: “Despite data traffic growth of 45%, our data revenue in 2022 only increased by around 2% compared to 2021 due to ever sliding data price induced by aggressive price war in the industry. In absence of data floor price, such price war is rendering the data business unsustainable. We urge immediate attention of the regulator on this matter.”

Reflecting on the completion of Robi’s 25 years anniversary, Robi’s CEO Rajeev Sethi said: “2022 will always remain a special year for Robi, as we celebrated 25 glorious years of our operation this year. It was particularly heartening to note that we observed this poignant moment of our journey with the largest percentage of 4G users in the industry (53% of our subscribers being 4G users.

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