Grameenphone booked revenue gains in Q1 on higher data usage while its bottom-line fell due to elevated capex.

CEO Yasir Azman noted in Grameenphone’s earnings release its continued network investment resulted in it doubling fibre connectivity and deploying more than 2,400 4G base stations for a total of 20,100.

Azman said Grameenphone’s “ongoing modernisation and transformation journey” is starting to show results.

Net profit declined 3.7 per cent year-on-year to BDT7.8 billion ($73.6 million), impacted by higher depreciation from spectrum purchases, new site rollouts and higher finance costs.

Revenue rose 2.8 per cent to BDT37.3 billon, with data up 14.2 per cent to BDT10 billion.

It was Grameenphone’s eighth consecutive quarter of year-on-year revenue growth.

Azman stated with the resumption of SIM sales in early January following a six-month government ban, Grameenphone’s subscriber base returned to growth, with the sum up 1 million to 80.1 million.

Year-on-year, its user base was down by 3.6 million subscribers.

Capex increased 77 per cent to BDT6.9 billion.

ARPU grew 7.5 per cent to BDT153.