B Mirror Report: The top private-sector cellular provider in the nation, Grameenphone, made Tk 15,806 crore in revenue the previous year. The company’s revenue in 2024 was Tk 15,845 crore. Consequently, over the course of a year, Grameenphone’s revenue fell by Tk 39 crore.

Although revenue had a modest dip, profit experienced a significantly greater decline. Grameenphone (GP) reported a profit of Tk 2,958 crore at the end of last year. The business made Tk 3,631 crore in 2024, the year before. As a result, the company’s earnings decreased by Tk 673 crore, or almost 18.5 percent, in just one year.

Grameenphone has decided to distribute the majority of last year’s profit to shareholders as cash dividends. For the year, the company declared a total cash dividend of 215 percent. Of this, 110 percent, or Tk 11 per share, has already been paid as interim dividend. The remaining 105 percent, or Tk 10.50 per share, has been declared as final dividend for the year. This dividend decision was taken at a meeting of the company’s board of directors held last Monday, and as a listed company, the information was disclosed to shareholders through the country’s two stock exchanges last Tuesday.

According to the declared dividend, the company will distribute approximately Tk 2,903 crore in total as cash dividends for last year. The company stated that more than 98 percent of the profit earned by GP last year will be distributed to shareholders as dividends, more than half of which has already been paid as interim dividends.

A review of the financial statements shows that the sharper decline in profit compared to revenue was mainly due to a significant increase in financial expenses, including interest on loans, as well as higher costs related to exchange rate fluctuations of the US dollar. Last year, the company’s financial expenses, including interest on loans, rose to Tk 641 crore, compared to Tk 499 crore in 2024. That means Grameenphone’s financial expenses increased by Tk 142 crore within one year. Similarly, due to exchange rate movements of the dollar, GP’s costs increased by Tk 17 crore year-on-year. By the end of last year, such exchange-rate-related costs rose to Tk 77 crore, up from Tk 60 crore in 2024.

Grameenphone paid the government almost Tk 250 crore more in taxes last year than it did in 2024, despite the drop in earnings. In 2024, the corporation paid Tk 1,723 crore in taxes from operational profit to the government treasury, compared to Tk 1,964 crore last year.