Anders Jensen, CEO of the country's largest mobile-phone operator by subscription, briefed the media on the status of the firm's move to become a publicly-traded company at GP headquarters where the financial statement for the third quarter of 2008 was released.
GP said it posted revenues of about Tk 4500 crore in the first nine months of the current fiscal year, up 11 percent from the same period of last year, though its average revenue per user (ARPU) has fallen.
The revenue grew around 7 percent to about Tk 1500 crore in the third quarter of this year from last year's.
The company's Bangladesh operations head sought to allay uncertainties about the Initial Public Offering, saying the process was very much on track, albeit delayed, thanks to the global financial turmoil and other challenges.
"We have been delayed as a consequence of global credit crunch where international investors have been a lot more hesitant… because international markets are more volatile," said Jensen.
"We planned to resubmit an updated application to SEC within the fourth quarter. But the entire process will not be complete until the first quarter of next year," he added.
The third quarter saw a further cut in the average tariff rates, which led to 25 percent decline in ARPU over last year's figures.
The subscription growth was also offset due to the ongoing churning of barred non-registered SIMs during the third quarter of this year.
The total revenue, however, rose 7 percent mainly due to subscription growth, which was partially offset by the declining ARPU, the statement said.
The number of subscriptions rose 0.5 million from second quarter and by more than 5 million compared with third quarter of last year, while the market share remained stable at 46 percent
Based on the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission's re-registration directive, GP has barred 692,000 subscriptions, of which 544,000 were churned out this quarter, while the remainder will barred in the next quarter.
"The overall subscriber growth has slowed down primarily due to the existing high SIM tax, which is limiting the affordability for the customers with limited income.
"However, as the telephone penetration rate is still low at around 30 percent even compared with other regional countries, there is major potential for growth going forward," said Jensen
"With the withdrawal or reduction of the SIM tax, a much larger number of people mainly in the rural areas will be able to enjoy the benefits of modern mobile technology," he said.
Telecoms regulators BTRC has recently decided to allocate an additional spectrum of 7.4 MHz to Grameenphone at a cost of Tk 80 crore per MHz.
"The additional allocation of frequency will enable Grameenphone to further improve its network quality through a more cost-effective and efficient deployment of different network elements," the Grameenphone chief executive said.
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