Robi Axiata booked double-digit profit and revenue gains in the final quarter of 2022, but warned regular cuts in tariffs meant its data business is not sustainable.

In its earnings release, CEO Rajeev Sethi explained data revenue across 2022 increased around 2 per cent despite 45 per cent traffic growth due to falling tariffs driven by an aggressive price war.

Sethi urged Bangladesh’s regulator to take action, noting in “the absence of a data floor price, such a price war is rendering the data business unsustainable”.

Net profit in Q4 hit BDT1.3 billion ($12.3 million) from BDT100 million in the comparable period of 2021, credited to cost management and favourable one-off gains.

Sethi said it made significant gains on an optimised cost structure, which he noted will be key to strengthening its bottom-line in future.

Revenue rose nearly 10 per cent to BDT22.5 billion, driven by 15.6 per cent growth in data revenue to BDT8.3 billion.

Its subscriber base was up 1.4 per cent to 5.4 million.

The company added 5.1 million LTE subscribers to close the year with 29.9 million and data users accounted for 76 per cent of its total customers.

Average monthly data usage grew 38.9 per cent to 6GB.

Capex declined 18.8 per cent to BDT15.3 billion