Morning, everyone. Welcome to Grameenphone's earnings disclosure for the third quarter of 2023. My name is Alif Pasha, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations, and with me today are our CEO, Mr. Yasir Azman, and our CFO, Mr. Jens Becker. Please note that the presentation we are sharing today, financial statements, along with other additional documents, are available on our investor relations website. You can start by posting questions, and we shall address them at the end of the presentation. In case you are unable to pose your questions due to technical reasons, please send them to me via email or text. I will now welcome our CEO, Mr. Yasir Azman, to start our presentation.
Thank you, Mr. Alif Pasha, and good morning, everyone. I'm Yasir Azman, Chief Executive Officer of Grameenphone, and thank you for joining us for our Q3 2023 earnings call. As reported by our regulator, till August 2023, the telecommunications industry reported 188.6 million subscribers, increasing by 3.5 million subscribers from May 2023. During the same period, mobile data users increased by 4.2 million, and it is reaching to 119.8 million in August 2023. Now I'm moving on to, some of the key business highlights for the quarter. Our continuous steps to simplify our data portfolio has not only enhanced customer convenience, but also allowed us to optimize pricing effectively, resulting in 8.5% year-on-year growth in average revenue per users in this quarter.
In addition, our industry-first initiatives showcasing our innovation and leadership in a competitive landscape. I will delve into the details of this milestone shortly. We have made significant strides in transforming the user experience through the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning. By enabling AI/ML personalization for our customers, we are tailoring our services to meet their unique needs and preferences. This not only enhances our customer satisfaction, but also ensures that our services continue evolving with the cutting-edge technology. While this is helping us to build personalized offers at different contexts for our customers' lifestyle and life cycle, it has actually, for us, resulted in 2 days additional revenue generation for our customers in a month and 13% higher ARPU while these customers are using MyGP, our flagship app distribution channel.
Our course in network expansion and investment have boosted our 4G subscribers base, growing 16.5% year-on-year, which is playing a critical role in driving our growth. On the regulatory front, and since Q2 FY of this year, Grameenphone has been in constructive dialogue with BTRC for reconciliation of payments in relation to the settlement of disputes. Rather than amidst the challenges posed by the macroeconomic environment, we have continued to deliver on top line and EBITDA growth and is growing Q-on-Q, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to delivering value to our stakeholders and ensuring the sustainability of our business. If I may highlight some of the key macroeconomic factors, so you know, inflation went up at its highest level in a decade and now hovering above 9.5%.
Foreign exchange reserves have been declining by nearly $1 billion per month, and in recent months, trading on the opening and settlement of LCs. The IMF lowered GDP growth projection for 2023 by 0.5 percentage points to 6% from its earlier April projection of 6.5% GDP growth for the year. Now, if I may expand a bit more on the business aspects. Our focus on network investment has resulted in significant progress through a spectrum deployment, site rollout, and addition of cells to increase capacity. We have increased fiber connectivity to 41% from 17% from the year end of 2021, and have rolled out over 21,000 total sites in the country.
Grameenphone is diversifying B2B portfolio, focusing on development of a new IoT platform and development of ICT-based products, leveraging capabilities of IT, ICT, IoT, and cloud ML to deliver on our B2B and advanced customer need, and to develop new revenue avenues beyond our core services. We have forged a strategic, local and global partnership, which will be a vital role and a vital critical elements in advancing in the digital and tech area to gain competitive advantage, and as I mentioned, to serve our B2B and advanced customer needs. MyGP continues to be the largest local app in Bangladesh, with 16.4 million customers, while our total self-care app user reached 18.3 million, highlighting the success of our continued efforts to develop seamless digital experience for our customers.
We continue enhancing MyGP features and latest being an operator-agnostic login solution, ensuring secure access for all mobile users in the country. Now, everyone in Bangladesh can enjoy entertainment and sports content on MyGP, and we hope to bring more contents into this platform. We have also expanded payment options, allowing users to choose their preferred method. The entire customer journey remains seamless within the app, reinforcing our commitment to a robust and scalable platform. Using the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning, we are focusing on transforming and improving personalization of our customers, giving users an immersive experience of telco and non-telco offers. And these are the capabilities not only to build and give better customer experience, as I mentioned, this is also increasing to have an increased ARPU generation, revenue generation in a month, and higher ARPU while they are using our digital platforms.
Subscriber base growth momentum continued in the third quarter, increasing by 0.8 million, which is now 82 million in total. Marking on some of our big achievements, at Grameenphone, we strive to provide customer-centric digital solutions and industry-first initiatives, keeping the demand of our customers at the core, and we take pride in being the number one network and enhancing experiences like gaming and redefining connectivity standards. With the objective of reducing our customer pain points, we have launched the first-ever airport kiosk just before the departure gate, dedicated to international roaming subscribers while world started roaming heavily in this last few quarters. This achievement highlights our commitment to our customers' convenience and accessibility to our services on the go, as it allows last-minute international roaming and access to other solutions right before boarding the plane at the airport.
GP Star, our loyalty program, has seen remarkable growth with more than 5,000 partner outlets, an impressive 60% year-on-year engagement increase, strengthening our customer relations. We made movie watching more accessible, which is one of the areas we are focusing on to bring in the content to our subscribers and to our audience, by introducing an industry-first subscription-based video-on-demand capability, starting with a movie called Priyotoma, achieving a remarkable 48% increase in sales on Bioscope, and our committed entertainment OTT platform, compared to traditional cinema halls. All these different services riding on our data connectivity, and with the cutting-edge technological capabilities, we see better customer interaction, retention in our network, and increased average revenue per customers. Moving on to our work in and for the societies and empowering societies. At Grameenphone, we believe that our responsibility extends beyond just our business operations.
We are deeply committed to driving social impact and making a positive difference in the communities we serve. For our social impact initiatives, we have been making efforts towards accelerating the nation's future economic growth by enhancing the skills and potential of the, of our youth. An AI-powered youth upskill platform has been launched by Future Nation p rogram, which we are running together with UNDP and BIDA, empowering your- our young individuals in creating smart CVs, employability assessment, and skill enhancement. GP Academy, our free and open upskill platform, awarded skill certification to 400,750 students, of which 39% are females. Industry leaders and policymakers have been involved in youth upskilling with GP Academy program. We have trained more than 110,000 school children and young people from vulnerable communities on online safety and digital skills.
This includes training of teachers from more than 600 schools during the quarter. Grameenphone played a prominent role in Regional Climate Summit 2023 to underline GP's commitment on climate action and the significance of access to renewable energy for private sector in the context of Bangladesh. We have also taken up targets to increase our percentage of annual spend to our suppliers, contributing towards carbon emission targets, and currently, we have reached 32.6%. During the last flash floods in Chittagong Division, we supported 10,000 families with food relief and deployed five water treatment plants to provide safe drinking water to the affected communities, and these are the areas we work as and when required, other than our regular programs to empower society, especially digital skill development and online safety.
With this, I will now welcome our CFO, Jens Becker, to take you through our financial performance for the quarter Q3 2023. Jens Becker.
Thank you, Azman, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with a short overview of the key financial KPIs. Grameenphone continued its solid financial performance in Q3 with a continued growth in top line and EBITDA amidst rising inflation and other macroeconomic challenges. Continuous network coverage, expansion and spectrum deployment to improve the network experience, along with customer-focused market activity, resulted in a 6% year-on-year growth in subs and traffic revenue, after 5.3% growth in the previous quarter. In addition, Grameenphone's continuous drive for operational excellence, along with top line growth, resulted in a year-on-year 5.7% EBITDA growth in Q3, while maintaining an EBITDA margin at 61.9%, which was a 61.1% in the previous quarter.
With our continuous investment effort, Grameenphone's CapEx to sales ratio, excluding licenses and leases for the quarter, stood at 14% based on the four-quarter moving average. For the quarter, EPS stood at BDT 5.53, with an 18.2% NPAT margin. Turning to the sub base. Our sub base growth continued with 0.8 million net adds during the quarter. The reported subbase at the end of the quarter stood at 82 billion, with 0.9% growth from the previous quarter and 0.3% growth from last year. On the other hand, data sub growth continued with 1.4 million data sub additions. During the quarter, in Q3, the data subs stood at 47.5 million, with a quarter-on-quarter 3% growth and year-on-year 4.3% growth.
With our continued efforts to improve the 4G network performance, Grameenphone's 4G data sub reached 37.2 million, with a year-on-year 16.5% growth. According to BTRC published information, as of August, GP's subscription market share stood at 43.5%, which is 0.2 percentage points lower compared to last quarter. We delivered 10 consecutive quarters of growth in total revenue and daily subscription and traffic revenue. During the quarter, total revenue year-on-year grew by 6.3%, after 5.6% growth in the previous quarter. The growth in total revenue was mainly driven by the 6% growth in subscription and traffic revenue, which was 5.3% in the last quarter. Continued and improved double-digit growth in data revenue remains the main contributor to the accelerated top-line growth.
Over the last four quarters, Grameenphone has delivered double-digit growth in data revenue with accelerated growth momentum. In Q3, Grameenphone delivered year-on-year 26.2% growth in data revenue, up from 17.1% growth in the previous quarter. This improved growth momentum in data revenue was the outcome of relentless efforts to improve network experience and customer-centric offerings and digital experiences. On the other hand, year-on-year degrowth in bundle revenue was primarily caused by the personalized offers and product portfolio to meet the evolving needs of our customers. Next slide. During the quarter, the service ARPU increased by 8.5% compared to last year and 1.4% compared to last quarter. The year-on-year growth in service ARPU was mainly driven by higher contribution from data segments.
On the other hand, in Q3, Grameenphone maintained average megabyte per user at around 7 gigabytes, which was 22.1% higher from last year. The growth in data usage was supported by continuous deployment of new spectrum and increased fiber connectivity. For this quarter, Grameenphone's reported OpEx stood at BDT 13.2 billion, with a year-on-year 10.2% growth. The growth in OpEx was mainly contributed by increased energy costs due to the price hike impact and network expansion. However, despite various set challenges, Grameenphone delivered consecutive 10 quarters growth in EBITDA. During the quarter, Grameenphone registered year-on-year 5.7% EBITDA growth, while maintaining EBITDA margin at 61.9%, amidst the energy price hike, inflation and other macroeconomic challenges. The growth in EBITDA performance was mainly driven by top-line growth and operational efficiencies.
On the CapEx side, during the quarter, Grameenphone invested BDT 2.8 billion CapEx, excluding licenses, lease and RoU, mainly focusing on 4G network coverage expansion and 2,600 megahertz spectrum deployment. 1,800+ new 4G sites and 1,700+ new coverage sites rolled out in the last 12 months. At the end of Q3, the number of 4G sites reached 21,000, with 97.9% 4G population coverage. Turning to the bottom line, net profit for the quarter stood at BDT 7.5 billion, with an 18.2% margin, with a year-on-year degrowth of 17.7%, impacted by higher tax provision and higher depreciation, resulting from network expansion and last year's 2,600 megahertz spectrum acquisition. The operating cash flow for the quarter stood at BDT 22.7 billion.
This year-on-year 1.4 billion growth in operating cash flow was mainly generated by 1.4 billion higher EBITDA. On the other hand, as of Q3, net debt stood at BDT 4.6 billion, in combination of BDT 7.6 billion short-term bank loan and BDT 7 billion cash balance, excluding restricted cash. As of Q3, Grameenphone contributed BDT 95 billion to the national exchequer, equaling 80% of total revenue in the form of taxes, VAT, duties, licenses and spectrum assignment fees. Since its inception, Grameenphone has contributed BDT 1,156 billion to the national exchequer. With this, I will now hand back to Azman to summarize and wrap up.
Thank you, Jens. To summarize and reinforce the Q3 2023, we registered continued growth momentum in both revenue and EBITDA, supported by data segment, in a very challenging macroeconomic environment, of course. Contributors mainly included growing our pool of our subscriber because of higher data usage and new services, and of course, our strong strength in market execution. Our efforts in network expansion and investment and transforming the user experience has strengthened our position as the number one network in the country. And we continue to focus on meeting our customers' unique needs to simplify data portfolio, which has been a key focus areas for the year, personalized offers, where we have built-...
Cutting edge technological advancement and advanced digital capabilities, which has driven higher data usage by our customer, retention in our network, as far as number of days they are into network, and you, as we mentioned, especially when in the digital channels, higher usage. While customers remain at the core of our business, ensuring health, safety, and security remains a priority for us throughout the year, throughout the value chain in Grameenphone. Thank you, everyone, once again. I will now hand it back to Alif for a Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, Osman Hai. We have a couple of questions which have actually come in. So the first one I will pass to Osman Hai.
Subscriber base has finally returned to growth. Have you recovered from the SIM ban?
Good. Yes, it's indeed the subscriber base has finally returned to the growth as far as the Q3 exit last year concerned. However, as you understand, that SIM ban started at the end of Q2 last year, which means we had a higher base. We have not reached to that base of 84.6 million yet. However, considering the Q3 last year, we are now having growth in subscriber base.
Thank you, Osman Hai. The next question is for Jens. Why is bundle revenue falling?
Yes, thank you. I think I've briefly touched it in my speech as well. But rather focusing on the specific revenue streams, we always focuses on customer evolving needs, and products are designed based on those needs. Consequently, the revenue is generated from that stream. During the quarter, Grameenphone introduced personalized bundle offers in both the physical and the, as well as the digital channels, which were only focusing on the specific customer bundle offer demands.
Okay, we have a couple of questions. I'll summarize together. It's based on data usage. So, we have seen data usage significantly grow over the quarters in Q1. Now, in Q3, it seems to be stagnant over Q2. What is the reason?
Yeah, let me take this, Alif. So the 7 GB data usage per user, we consider a milestone for the industry, and GP had achieved this in the last quarter. This is the highest data usage as per user in the industry, as I mentioned, based on Q2 published information. In Q3, GP's data users are still maintaining this usage at 7 GB, which is supported by our continuous efforts to improve data network experience.
Okay. Thank you, Jens. Finally, we have another one for you, Jens. After three quarters of high CapEx, why is it so low? After three quarters of high CapEx, why is it so low this quarter? I believe it must be two quarters, but why is it low so this quarter? Is this related to forex?
I think this is basically a timing variance. In 2022, GP invested BDT 17.3 billion for CapEx, whereas we already invested BDT 16.8 billion for CapEx as of Q3. In 2023, there was higher CapEx spending in the first half to improve the network performance through coverage, expansion, and deployment of a new spectrum.
Okay. Thank you, Jens. And we have a very generic question. So this, probably Jens can take a bit, and then maybe Osman Hai can also add. Could you please explain the reasons that caused the difference between Q2 and Q3 earnings?
Q2 and Q3 earnings?
Yes. So I believe, the question is a very generic, so, I mean, it's pretty much covered in our entire Q3 earnings call, but maybe just an overview would be okay.
Yeah. I think it probably refers to the growth rates, I assume, and this is basically driven, as I mentioned in the presentation, we have on the earnings for this quarter, two impacts. One is the higher depreciation, which comes from especially from the spectrum that we started in Q4 last year. This is one for the higher depreciation. And then we have taken some tax provisions, as there are some in some areas a lack of clarity on the new Income Tax Act of 2023, and here we are waiting for clarification from NBR in this regard and have taken tax provisions for this so far. I think that's the basic difference when it comes to earnings.
Yes, pretty much. That's about it. We don't have any more questions. If we can wait for another 30 seconds to see if anything else comes in. Nope, I believe that's all for this quarter. So, Jens, Osman Hai, thank you very much. And to everyone who has joined, thank you as well. Since there are no other further questions, we will close for today, but please feel free to reach out to me later if required, via email or text. Thank you and goodbye.
Thank you, everyone. Goodbye.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Alif. Sure.