Grameenphone Ltd. (GP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. My name is Naureen. I'm the Head of Investor Relations for Grameenphone, and I would like to welcome you to our earnings disclosure for the fourth quarter of 2020. A small note before we begin. Our presentation, financial statements and additional documents are available on our Investor Relations website. You can start posting your questions on the comment box. We will address them at the end of our presentation. I would now like to welcome our CEO, Mr. Yasir Azman, to start our presentation.

Thank you, Naureen, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Yasir Azman, Chief Executive Officer of Grameenphone. Before we deep dive into our performance of the quarter, I would like to take you through a recap of the exceptional year 2020. And that's COVID -- the impact of COVID-19, which was omnipresent in world economy, and Bangladesh was not an exception. Months ago, in early March 2020, Bangladesh reported the first case of COVID-19. Then onwards, we have seen the numbers of positive cases and deaths started rising as it is all over the world. And as a precautionary measure, the government declared general holidays from the end of the March, which were lifted at the end of May with lockdown and restrictions on movement, the livelihood adversely impacted. The lockdown initially led to operational challenges for us as the distribution, value chain, retailers and network operations were interrupted. However, it was good that government has declared telecommunications service quickly as an essential service, and which helped us to run our operation uninterrupted, though it was pretty difficult during the lockdown period. There is strong business continuity plan in place from the beginning of the year, I would say, from beginning of March, while we started facing COVID to ensure continuation of our operation at granular level. And during this period, our teams have also worked closely with central and local authorities and stakeholders to overcome the challenges, by being very agile while they were on the ground and finding out new and innovative ways to tackle the issues we are facing at that point of time. We also implemented some of the best practices in our BCP, which helped us navigate through this challenging pandemic situation in identifying and mitigating the risk we are seeing. In addition to COVID, we have also experienced that the increase in supplementary duty in June, making telecom services more expensive to avail for our customers. Regulatory also imposed SMB directives on us in July, which we complied with under protest as we continue to work together with them to establish a framework. Together with the regulatory bodies, we are now working on streamlining the processes in this regard. We have seen progress as far as the new tower rollout concerns. We reached a service level agreement with our tower company partner, edotco. After securing approval from the regulator. And that's progress, which is much needed at this point of time to mitigate the gap in our network and bringing better customize experience in coming days. After securing non-objection certificates from our regulator, we also continued our planned investment in the second half of the year. And despite unconventional challenges, a solid operational performance by our dedicated teams has led us a strong foundation for GP as we are entering into 2021. Moving on. We have experienced lower-than-expected economic recovery from the pandemic in the quarter 4, though we were experiencing better recovery earlier in the third quarter. With an excellent run rate in subscriber acquisition in Q4, resulting in a higher net debt in the quarter. We drove our data business by launching various campaigns and events, being our product portfolio. Taking learning from the subscribers change in demand due to the pandemic, which we have observed closely and accordingly, we have brought [indiscernible]. We are focused on monthly and weekly packages with attractive contractual offers for our customer based on their need we have observed during this period. To ensure quality data subscriber for 2021, when we were entering a new year we focused mainly in the customer management, how can we reduce the churn and also new data subscriber acquisition through various campaigns. Our focus in digital distribution also remained very strong. We teamed up with our mobile financial services partners like bKash, Nagad by launching various cash incentive base and customer engagement-driven campaigns. We also launch exclusive voice packs for self-service app, also data packs for our self-service at MyGP as well as through mobile server financial services. While we were revamping overall portfolio for our flexi plan channel, which is also one of our very key digital distribution platform. To innovate, we focused on service bundling. We connect our customers to what matters most to them. Service bundling with popular apps, such as like Zee5 and various video streaming services were launched during this period. And finally, drive on 4G conversion this quarter led us to 19.8 million 4G users out of our total 41.3 million data users in our network at the end of the year. And that's a major improvement in data subscriber phone and an excellent entry to 2021. I'd like to move on to the -- give you some update on our regulatory environment. As discussed last quarter, we have signed a service level agreement with edotco following regulatory approval, which will first check the acquisition of new towers. This partnership extends our commitment to ensure quality access to data and voice across the country, we can increase number of towers. And in regards to BTRC Audit, BTRC and Post & Telecommunication Division propose to form 7-member committee to deal with the recovery of BTRC audit claim and requested GP to nominate 2 persons into this commentary. We responded asking for clarification with regards to terms of reference and also the decision process of the committee. GP and BTRC now is in good dialogue on this matter. Based on GP's request, a meeting took place on starting 13th January 2021, chaired by the BTRC Chairman and will continue working with our regulatory. Moving on, COVID-19, a little bit of situation update at this point of time from my side. Till at date Bangladesh has recorded over 530,000 cases of COVID positive with the number of deaths crossing 8,000. It has impacted our -- in many sectors, our educational sector, which has been closed since March, is slowly gearing up to reopen as per the instruction of the authorities. Several government mandate precautions are being put in place to ensure proper protocols are followed by the educational institutes prioritizing the health and safety. Unlike many other parts of the world, the detection rate of Bangladesh has been slowing -- slowly declining, with no further lockdowns we have observed after May. However, several uncertainties remain as the pandemic and related risks are still not over. So at this period of pandemic, GP has collaborated with several authorities and partners and providing emergency responses to COVID-19. Likewise, we provided PPE and test kits to a designated COVID facilities and medical frontliners as well as provided emergency food assistance to 100,000 families in dire need. Due to the various restrictions, many GP customers were unable to recharge their balance. And we provided 10 free minutes to 1 crore prepaid customers to ensure their connectivity with their loved ones. Faced by the pandemic, Grameenphone has adapted to several contingency and new ways of work, prioritizing the health and safety of our employees, partners and customers. There were no disruption to our sales and distribution channels as an outcome of our combined efforts. Yet, it was very difficult to ensure our services in the distribution and retail front, while we were into lockdown in the -- during March to May period. We continue empowering the society with the largest network footprint in the country, Grameenphone is privileged to be able to empower 79 million customers with network connectivity, enabling 41.3 million customers with access to Internet, out of which 19.8 million customers enjoy the benefits of 4G, which is 65.6% up from previous year in terms of our 4G users. Throughout 2020, Grameenphone has paid BDT 98.2 billion to the national exchequer. We have embarked on a partnership with UNICEF Bangladesh on child online safety through [indiscernible] dialogue with policy makers and opinion leaders of the country. We'll also continue our efforts and collaborate with authorities and partners in helping our communities recover from the pandemic. Now I would like to take you through our financial performance in details. I would now also like to invite our CFO, Jens Becker, to take us through the financial performance. Jens?

Thank you, Azman, and good morning to everybody in the call. So let me start with an overview of our key KPIs. In quarter 4 2020, Grameenphone continued its solid operational performance in terms of strong subscriber acquisition and enhanced investment momentum amidst the economic uncertainty. The overall economy is still impacted by COVID-19 with an average daily new cases of around 2,000 level during October and November, while educational institutions remained closed. The economic activities were further influenced by bad weather and early winter. Despite the volatility of the situation, Grameenphone remained active in the market with 372,000 active recharge outlets on a daily basis, means coming back to a pre-COVID level, along with the continued expansion of our 4G network. In summary, Grameenphone had minus 2.8% year-on-year growth in subs and traffic revenue in Q4 after minus 1.4% in Q3 and minus 8.1% in Q2. Through our efficient OpEx management, we were able to keep EBITDA margin stable at 63.4%. On a standalone basis, the CapEx-to-sales ratio for the quarter stood at 11.4% after 9% in Q3 and 7.5% in Q2. As a result, year-to-date basis, CapEx-to-sales ratio stood at 7.2%. Earnings per share grew by 12.3% year-on-year to BDT 7.65 in Q4, benefiting from lower finance costs and tax expenses due to one-off dispute settlement impacts. Turning to the next page. Grameenphone continued its subscriber base expansion with 1.4 million net adds in Q4, backed by a strong acquisition drive in the market. Therefore, the sub base at the end of the quarter stood at 79 million, posting a 1.9% growth from previous quarter. According to BTRC published information, GP subscription market share stood at 46.5% with a 0.1 percentage points improvement. Our 4G population coverage increased by 7.8 percentage points compared to Q3, reaching 91.1% after 83.3% 4G pop coverage in Q3. Next slide, turn to the revenue. The overall revenue development has been impacted by a slower economic recovery, leading to a year-on-year growth for the quarter of minus 2.8% on daily subs and traffic revenue and a minus 3.7% for total revenue. The BDT 0.9 billion decrease in subs and traffic revenue was mainly driven by a fall in voice revenue, contributing minus BDT 1.3 billion, partly offset by the growth in data revenue with a positive BDT 0.4 billion. Our total revenue growth was additionally impacted by the reduction in both the local and international call termination rates. Continuing on the next slide. The growth in data revenue continued with a plus 5.1% -- [ 2.9% ] increase in data ARPU and 1.7% increase in data user. Data users for the quarter stood at 41.3 million, including 19.8 million 4G data users, which means that in Q4, Grameenphone's 4G data users increased by 2 million. The growth of our 4G data users was positively impacted by an accelerated drive on the expansion of our 4G network capacity, along with a continued focus on 4G conversion. Turning to the next. GP continued providing its customer better value through attractive market offers, including segmented campaigns and bonus on 4G data packs. In addition, GP focused on portfolio integration with different MFS channels, as Azman has mentioned before, in Q4. As a result, GP's average megabyte per user grew by 51.4% to around 2.9 gigabyte per user, leading to a 2.9% growth in data ARPU. The negative service ARPU growth was mainly impacted by a lower contribution from voice and interconnection, which could be only partly offset by the higher contribution from data. Turning to the OpEx side. On OpEx, we were able to reduce cost by 5.6% year-on-year against the 3.7% degrowth in total revenue. In absolute terms, OpEx for the quarter stood at BDT 10.5 billion, while the OpEx reduction in Q4 was mainly driven by lower acquisition costs, commissions, market spend and an increased operational efficiency. EBITDA degrew by 3.9% year-on-year, mainly due to the lower revenue, partly offset by the group lower OpEx, resulting in a stable EBITDA margin of 63.4%. Next page. GP's investment momentum continued with BDT 4 billion CapEx in Q4, focusing mainly towards accelerated 4G network expansion. On a standalone basis, as mentioned before, this reflects the CapEx-to-sales ratio for the quarter of 11.4% after 9% in Q3. We've rolled out 2,659 new 4G sites in Q4. And at the end of Q4, the number of 4G sites, therefore, reached 14,080 in total to reach 16,547. On the next slide, our net profit grew by 12.3% year-on-year, positively impacted by one-off adjustments in our finance costs and tax expenses due to the resolution of pending issues. In absolute terms, net profit BDT 10.3 billion, with a 29.7% margin. On a reported basis, the NPAT margin improved by 4.2 percentage points from last year, and 4.7 percentage points from previous quarter. GP's full year EPS stood at BDT 27.54 year-on-year growth, along with a profit margin of 26.6%. On the next page. On the operating cash flow, means EBITDA minus CapEx degrew by BDT [ 4.9 ] billion year-on-year, mainly attributed to the BDT 0.9 billion lower EBITDA that we have. Net debt stood at BDT 0.5 billion. The BDT 4.5 billion decrease in net debt from last quarter was mainly driven by BDT 7.6 billion lower liability and BDT 3.1 billion lower cash balance, excluding the restricted cash. Just a snapshot on next slide on our contribution to the national exchequer, which stood at BDT 98 billion for the full year, posting an increase compared to last year. And finally, on the next slide, in terms of dividends, the Board of Directors has recommended a cash dividend of BDT 27.5 per share and a payout ratio of 99.86% of profit. With this, this was the financial overview, I would like to ask and welcome back Azman to conclude our session today.

Thank you, Jens. And as a recap, I'd like to say that we have proven to the [indiscernible], work well with our regulators to resolve various issues to continue improving better customer experience and to continue bringing innovation to our customers as we enter into 2021. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Therefore, we will be wary of uncertainties that remain while we aid our customers digital and technical expertise. We will continue to build on experience we provide to our customers and strengthening our digital distribution as key value words for our future growth. Thank you, everyone. I'll now hand back to Naureen for our Q&A session.

Thank you, Azman bhai. So I see a question from -- on data revenue growth at 5% year-over-year and slightly down quarter-over-quarter. Any major reason for data revenue growth trending down compared to previous quarters?

I think I have the answer. Of course, the data is still on a growth path as you've seen, a little bit lower year-on-year that we have seen. Nevertheless, we also see a fierce competition going on into the mix and impact this a little.

And there are no further questions. I believe some of our viewers are having trouble logging in today. So I'm really sorry about this. If you do have questions, please get in touch with me. I'll get back to you. Maybe we'll give it a minute or more to see if there are any more questions. Okay. We have one more. Can you give details regarding the agreement with the tower companies? Azman bhai, I believe you can take this.

It'll be -- it's a long SLA, and we have worked with our regulators over the last almost 2 years during this dark regime, it'll be very difficult to talk about all the details. However, we protected the rights for the MNOs and also by the regulations brought in on the tower companies. We came to endpoint where we all like to move on with SLA to bring in quality service for our customers by rolling out new sites.

Okay. Jens, I believe the next one is for you. Explain the reversal in interest expense in fourth quarter.

Yes. This has been a one-off, and we had a negative one-off adjustments in expenses in 2019 in those lines, taxes and interest. And now reversing this back was a positive adjustment in 2020 as we have settled a couple of pending issues with our regulators.

Okay. A follow-up question. What percentage of data traffic was 4G users? This is actually competitive data. We will not be disclosing this. We'll wait a bit more for any further questions. Azman bhai, I have one for you. How should one look at the subscriber growth going forward?

I guess, Azman is muted.

Azman bhai?

Yes, Naureen, would you please repeat the question?

How should one look at subscriber growth going forward?

We do believe that Bangladesh still provides the opportunity for growth in subscriber in net addition. It will be as forward-leaning question to answer if I talk our absolute numbers, but in the country is not yet more than 65% level of absolute penetration. We do believe with the extensive rollout we are doing in 4G countrywide and new towers coming in, we will see growth in subscribers.

In terms of 4G conversion, how different is ARPU from a 4G customer versus a normal data customer? Again, this is a competitive data. We will not be disclosing this. I have another one. Given the competitive scenario in the data segment and concern should we assume single-digit data revenue effect? We cannot give our forward-looking statements as we are restricted by our SEC. So we could not answer this question. Another one is, please, can you elaborate a bit more on the competition? Azman bhai, would you like to take this?

I was looking at my slide. Repeat again.

Can you elaborate a bit more on the competition?

This is a competitive market. We have seen during the pandemic and then in the latest date that there is a fierce competition in data front why the industry is growing in the 4G users. And also, we have seen that the users from data is coming from all over the country and we have seen growth in the role areas. So we will continue staying in competitive and we will remain competitive. At the same time, our focus will remain in innovation in our products and services and improving our quality of services and customer experience in our network.

We have another one. Can you elaborate on the potential restrictions due to SMP?

We have accepted and complied with 3 directives about in June this year. We have complied under protest, and we are working with our regulator to further streamline the processes. The 3 directives those were implemented during this period, one being lock-in period, the customers can switch to other operators after coming to Grameenphone has brought down to 60 days. We have now a different rate for interconnection, brought down to BDT 0.07 from BDT 0.10 for us to get from the competition. And then we have the third one, our product and service approval, which is we need to apply and regulators will provide the approval within 5 days. We have seen that we are able to work with our regulators to streamline the processes and bringing in productive services for our customers as and when required by getting their due approvals from the regulatory side.

Azman bhai, I have one more for you. How do you foresee the data industry going forward amidst growing broadband WiFi use in the country? What should be the strategy to sustain growth if data segment becomes mature?

This broadband WiFi, this area of overall data mix will increase. At the same time with the new users of data, we will see always the demand for mobility will remain. And we do see good potential in coming years. And we are continuing building our resilient data network, focusing on 4G and experience and bringing in new sites.

There was a question for voice revenue growth year-over-year. Yes?

Yes. On the voice side, revenue growth has been for the quarter, year-on-year minus 5.2% and for the full year, minus 7.2%.

Okay. At this point, no further questions. We'll wait a little bit. Jens, actually have one. Number of active data users has been flat at 40 million for the last couple of years. Going forward, what are your plans on growing it?

I think, generally, more and more for us. On the marketing side, nevertheless, I think what we see in there is, of course, that we are pushing for the 4G conversion. So the number, as I said, for the 4G has significantly increased, even being with the full data. But I believe also that has had a slight increase, but it's a focus on 4G that drives it. And forward-looking, sorry, to answer the full question then and forward-looking statements, of course, we, as Naureen mentioned, we are not able to give.

I see a request for us to disclose our voice and data revenue separately. We will analyze this and we will see what we can do going forward. Thank you. Okay. There are no further questions. I believe we can close for today. Thank you, everyone. If you don't have any questions, please get in touch with me. We will be taking meetings and discussions for over the next few days. Thank you and stay safe.

Thank you.