Grameenphone adds 1.3 million subscribers (Bangladesh)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With an increase of 1.3 million in the number of subscription, a jerk in subscription growth has been faced by Bangladesh’s Grameenphone in the last quarter of 2009, pushing the total number of subscriptions over the 23 million subscription base.

According to Grameenphone CEO Oddvar Hesjedal, the SIM tax continues to be a significant bane for the industry and a barrier for tele-penetration in the country as subscriptions spiked each time the company opted to subsidize the tax, however, there is concern that with new entrants coming into the market there is possibility of greater competition ahead.

2.6% increase in the Q4 revenue was also recorded by the telco. Due to higher subscription acquisition costs, EBITDA margin in this quarter stood at 52.6% compared to 59.6% of the last quarter of 2008 and 57% of the third quarter of 2009. Because of reduced interconnect rate, ARPU in this quarter decreased from BDT 268 to BDT 244 in comparison with the last quarter of 2008.