The New Nation - Internet Edition

ECONOMIC REPORTER

Aktel, one of the country's leading mobile phone operators, has incurred a loss of Tk 73.7 crore after tax in 2007, largely due to the compensation paid to the government for its involvement in illegal international call transfer through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology.

The Telekom Malaysia International owns 70 per cent of Aktel, the third largest mobile phone operator in the country.

Aktel in its fourth quarter report released last week said it paid the telecom regulator Tk 145 crore as compensation for involvement in illegally transferring international call bypassing the state-owned Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board network.

Besides compensating the government, the company also attributed lower average revenue per user and increased cost for aggressive network expansion as other reasons for the loss despite registering a 25 per cent growth in subscriptions.

Aktel's annual revenue, however, slightly increased to Tk 1,440 crore from Tk 1310 crore corresponding period in 2006.

The company, 30 per cent of which is owned by local AK Khan Group, claimed that its customer base reached to 7.2 million in 2007 from 5.8 million in 2006 which grossly mismatched with the figure released by the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) in January.

The BTRC's statistics, which was based on the figure provided by the respective mobile operator said Aktel's number of subscribers reached 6.40 million at the end of 2007.

The fourth quarter report also said the company was facing challenges which include uncertain policy and regulator decisions due to change in national leadership.

Earlier, the country's largest wireless carrier Grameenphone reported 33 per cent decline in operating profit because of the lower ARPU and increased cost in subscriber acquisition.