Robi points finger at GP for market distortion

Robi ended the second quarter of the year with profit after tax (PAT) of Tk 47 crore, supported by rising revenue and efficient cost management.

Robi’s financial results for the second quarter of 2021 were released on Wednesday in a virtual press briefing attended by its Chief Executive Officer Mahtab Uddin Ahmed.

The company said that its 4G subscriber base grew by 7.5 percent in Q2’21, compared to the previous quarter.

Commenting on the financial performance of the company, Robi’s Managing Director and CEO, Mahtab Uddin Ahmed said: “We are very happy to see that our digital vision has already begun to contribute significantly to our financial performance.

"We are efficiently managing our cost while continuing with the innovative digital technologies to future-proof the company," he claimed.

Reflecting on the company’s role in the pandemic situation, he added: “We are proud to be supporting the national call center, 333, which has been repurposed to serve the citizens as the Covid helpline. 333 is also enabling digital service delivery to citizens at their doorsteps. With Robi-10 Minute School, we are providing quality educational content to more than 3 million students of all ages every day.”

Citing the lack of effective implementation of the SMP regulation, Mahtab observed that the overall competitive distortions are pushing the market to the brink of failure and such a fragile state of the competitive landscape is making it difficult to achieve the economic efficiency.

Mahtab noted that distorted price mechanisms and distribution systems are undermining consumers’ interest and weakening the telecom industry to the detriment of the Digital Bangladesh vision.

He stressed the need for a market to operate efficiently and said no single entity should be allowed to dictate the price and output decisions.

“In our market, the presence of significant monopoly power is discouraging the competition from investing in innovative digital technologies that are crucial to the future of the country,” he said.

Though Robi’s CEO did not mention GrameenPhone’s (GP) name, he blamed dominant market player, which is GP.

Asked Md Hasan, head of external communications of GP, told the Business Insider Bangladesh, “We will not comment on the issue as Robi did not mention GP’s name”.

“It is right that GP is the market leader in Bangladesh,” he said.