Bangladesh’s largest mobile operator Grameenphone continued to grow its user base as it focused on expanding 3G coverage, with a 146 per cent jump in capex year-on-year.

The operator’s user base increased 8 per cent in Q1 to 56.3 million over the past year, which gave it a 43 per cent market share (up 1 percentage point from a year ago). Its capex soared from BDT3.7 billion in Q1 2015 to BDT9.1 billion ($114 million) last quarter. It said 3G coverage expanded to 80 per cent of the population after adding more than 1,800 3G base stations in Q1 to take its total to 7,635.

Data users grew 80 per cent to nearly 20 million and accounted for 35 per cent of its user base, up from 21 per cent a year ago. Data revenue increased 71 per cent to BDT2.8 billion and represented 10.7 per cent of services revenue compared with 6.9 per cent a year ago.

Voice revenue grew by 4.8 per cent year-on-year, while ARPU edged up BDT1 to BDT156 ($1.95).

Overall revenue increased 9.5 per cent to BDT27.6 billion in Q1, its fourth straight quarter of growth. Its net profit was up 4.9 per cent to BDT5.6 billion. EBITDA increased 11.8 per cent to BDT15.3 billion. Operating costs rose 7 per cent to BDT9.8 billion.