The profit of leading mobile phone operator Grameenphone declined for the straight second year as the company reported Tk 1,470 crore profit in 2013 which is 16 per cent or Tk 280 crore lower than that of previous year. In 2012, the GP profit declined by 7 per cent to Tk 1,750.47 crore compared to 76 per cent increase in 2011 to Tk 1,889 crore. The earnings per share of the company came down to Tk 10.89 in 2013 compared to that of Tk 12.96 in 2012.
‘We had 79 days of strikes in 2013 where most of those took place in the last quarter. So it was not a business friendly quarter in the year end which was a major reason for the decline in profit,’ GP chief executive officer Vivek Sood said at a news briefing in Dhaka on Tuesday.
He said the company had managed to acquire 7.1 million new subscribers in the year which took the total subscription base to 47.1 million with 41.4 per cent market share.
‘We also had an impact because of 5 per cent increase in corporate tax with retrospective effect of 2012. Other than that 3G licence payment was also took place in the last year which was a big amount,’ he said.
Sood said the GP had objections in the process that the National Board of Revenue was finalising SIM replacement tax issue.
‘The NBR is supposed to follow the process mentioned in the terms of reference but after the 3G auction it had unilaterally changed the process,’ he said.
Sood also said the telecom regulator’s directive about mobile number portability needed further discussion to avoid nuisance in the industry.
‘Other than that the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission recently issued directive about service quality which we are ready to maintain,’ he said.
The GP board of directors on Monday recommended 50 per cent final cash dividend for 2013. With the new announcement, total declared dividend stood at 140 per cent as it earlier recommended 90 per cent interim cash dividend for the year.
Despite the corporate declaration the stock price of each share of the GP rose to Tk 206 on Tuesday witnessing 1.5 per cent increase from the previous session.
-With New Age input
