Revenue will decrease with the use of teleservices: AMTOB

Supplementary duties and surcharges on telecom are unreasonable

In the last two years, inflation in the country has been 62 percent. At the same time, the cost of the dollar rose to 37. 6 percent. As a result, the cost of telecom business increased. In the last six quarters, the revenue of the operators has continuously declined. Also having a card for call roaming has an impact on the consumer. At such a time, the budget has increased the tax at the consumer level by 5 percent and the corporate tax has been fixed at 45 percent in the finance bill after the budget was passed. The cost is increasing step by step. So, we have to pay about 40 percent of our income in taxes. That means 58 taka out of each 100 taka earned by the operators goes to the government treasury while providing services. In total, a customer is now getting service of 72 taka instead of 75 taka for 100 taka each. But in the case of data, only 39 taka have to be paid to the government exchequer. In such circumstances, mobile operators' association AMTOB has suggested increasing revenue by increasing consumer usage through rational taxation. The organization's apprehension is, this may reduce the 12 percent growth of the telecom sector to 7 and a half percent every year.

This was announced at the post-budget press conference held at AMTOB office at Prasad Paradise in Banani on Wednesday. In a press conference presided over by AMTOB Secretary General Mohammad Zulfikar, Robi's Company Secretary and Chief Corporate and Affairs Officer Mohammad Shahed Alam and Banglalink Chief Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Officer Taimur Rahman presented the budget analysis.

Highlighting various data in the presentation, Shahed said, we are at the level of Pakistan paying the highest consumer tax in the region. Even Türkiye is not far behind us in setting surcharges due to earthquakes. A subscriber in the country currently consumes 6.5 GB of data per month. But in the neighboring country India, this rate is like 22 percent. So, they seem undervalued. But increasing the tax on SIM will discourage it.

He said, whenever the cost increases, the consumption reduces. This basically reduces the revenue. Investments will not grow when investors do not get returns from the money invested. There are now 118 crore SIMs in the country. But 8 crore customers are offline. Therefore, we demand to remove the sub liminary duty and surcharge. If this is done, internet usage will increase by 28 percent.

Highlighting the immediate effect of the tax, Taimur Rahman said, now the customer has to recharge 139 taka to get 100 taka service. Also, the withdrawal of the three-day package is now reducing the income. Revenue from data fell 1.25 percent in the first quarter of this year. So, this year's budget is a blow to death for us.

Grameenphone's Hans Martin Henriksson said that additional taxes on SIM cards will hinder smart Bangladesh with mobile penetration. If spending is not increased in this case, it will ultimately be better for everyone and growth will increase.

In response to questions from media persons, AMTOB General Secretary Mohammad Zulfiqar said that since the SRO was issued before the budget and there was an order for immediate implementation, it had to be implemented immediately after the budget proposal in Parliament. But we think our budget will be long-term oriented.

A PowerPoint presentation at the press conference showed that the three multinational companies in the telecom sector Grameenphone, Robi Axiata and Banglalink earned Tk 7,993 crore against their sold services in the second quarter (April-June) of the 2023 calendar year. At this time, compared to the previous quarter, the combined income of the companies increased by 7.23 percent.

However, the pace of business growth in the telecom sector slowed down from the next quarter onwards. In the third quarter (July-September) of the calendar year 2023, the business growth of the three companies was 1.92 percent. The growth rate was negative in the next two quarters. Among them, the growth rate in the fourth quarter of the last calendar year (October-December) was negative 1.76 percent. Keeping this trend, the growth rate in the first quarter (January-March) of the current 2024 calendar year stands at negative 1.24 percent.

According to the latest updated information of the current fiscal year, the total number of mobile subscribers in the country at the end of April stood at 193.733 million. Among them, the number of subscribers of Grameenphone was 8 crore 39 lakh 50 thousand. Besides, Robi Axiata has 5 crore 85 lakh 10 thousand, Banglalink 4 crore 47 lakh 20 thousand and state-owned Teletalk has 65 lakh 50 thousand subscribers.

Among the total mobile subscribers, the number of internet users is 12 crore 51 lakh 50 thousand. A large portion of mobile subscribers are still not using the Internet accordingly. Bangladesh also lags behind other countries in terms of internet data usage per customer. Similarly, the volume of voice calls and SMS in the country is decreasing in recent times. The number of internet users is increasing. According to BTRC data, operators sold 15,533 crore minutes of 'on-net call minutes' through their own networks in FY 2022-23. The previous year it was 16 thousand 374 crore minutes. In the financial year 2022-23, the number of SMS users used internally was 1,890.66 lakh. In the previous financial year, its amount was 2 thousand 599 crores 62 lakhs.