Bangladesh’s Grameenphone has recorded increased year-on-year revenue for its seventh consecutive quarter, shrugging off a months-long government-imposed ban on SIM sales.
The operator’s Q4 2022 results saw its subscriber total drop 5% to 79.1 million, likely due to the government banning it from selling new SIMs between July 2022 and January 2023. However, CEO Yasir Azman noted that Grameenphone’s investment in its network – including the deployment of 2.6GHz spectrum – had resulted in overall growth.
While Grameenphone’s net profit was down 54.4% year-on-year to BDT3.7 billion ($34.8 million) – attributed to financing costs and depreciation - its revenue increased 3.5% to BDT37.5 billion. The operator weathered the overall drop in subscribers by increasing ARPU, which grew 7.9% to BDT153 – largely driven by data revenue, which was up 11.9% to BDT9.9 billion, with LTE connections rising 23.6% to 34.2 million.
Over the course of 2022, Grameenphone increased its LTE coverage by 1.1% to 97.9%, adding a further 2300 sites to increase its total to 19,600.
