Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Grameenphone's earnings disclosure for the fourth quarter of 2022. My name is Noreen, I'm the head of investor relations. 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 additional documents, are available on our investor relations website. You can start posting your questions. We will address them at the end of our presentation. In case you're unable to post your questions due to any technical reasons, please send me an email or text. I will now welcome our CEO, Mr. Yasir Azman, to start our presentation.
Thank you, Noreen. Good morning, everyone. My name is Yasir Azman. I am the CEO of Grameenphone. Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter results announcement for the passing year, 2022. I'd like to begin with some of the industry facts. As reported by our regulator, till November, the telecommunication industry reported 180.87 million subscribers, which is a decline by 0.6 million subscribers from August 2022. During the same period, mobile data users have decreased by 1.3 million, that is reaching to 113.4 million in November. Some of the highlights of the quarter and the year. In 2022, this is a milestone year for Grameenphone. We have reached to 25th year of service to customers and empowering societies in Bangladesh.
In this year, we also participated in the country's largest spectrum auction in March, where Grameenphone secured the maximum allowable 60 MHz of 2.3 GHz spectrum. However, 2022 brought its fair share of challenges, which we'll discuss shortly. Grameenphone continued to deliver top-line growth supported by investment in network, strengthened market execution, and benefits of organization modernization journey that we have embarked on for the past few years. As a result, with the dedication of the entire team, we showed resilience in overcoming the various external hurdles we faced during the year and remained committed to our priority, improving experience for our customers and creating value for our shareholders. With advanced digital capabilities, we drove innovation in our business and customer engagement.
We improved customer experience with partnership and collaboration with Google and Facebook, as well as partnerships with a2i and bKash, which is the largest MFS service provider in Bangladesh. In 2022, we have also faced several challenges. During the first half, we dealt with some of the worst floods and rainfalls recorded in the history of the country, as northern Bangladesh was hit the worst case. In an already struggling post-pandemic era, the natural calamity slowed down economic recovery in Bangladesh. War between Russia and Ukraine has impacted on global energy crisis and subsequent cost increases, and Bangladesh is not out of it. The inflation level in Bangladesh has gone up, directly impacting the spending capabilities of our customers, causing them to optimize their wallets.
In addition to the macroeconomic factors, Grameenphone has faced challenges from the regulatory ban on SIM sales, which was imposed on 29th June 2022 on the basis of not meeting the required quality of service, which has been ultimately lifted on 2nd of January this year. Throughout the year, we have significant uplift over network quality with high investment and innovative solutions. On 10th of January this year, the Apex Court of the country passed a verbal ruling on a legacy litigation case related to VAT rebate on 2G license renewal fee, which disallows Grameenphone's appeal. We will wait until we obtain the written verdict on this matter before we provide any further updates on this topic. Moving on to market execution, which has led to a sustaining growth momentum.
We started to deploy the 2.6 MHz spectrum to our size this year, in 2022, I mean, and leading to significant improvement and experience enhancement. With continued site rollout, 1,900 in year 2022, Grameenphone reached another milestone of over 20,000 sites on our network. In addition to improving our core, we continue to work on customer journey improvement, simplification, bringing in convenience, and improving engagement with our customers in a very personalized and segmented manner. We continue to revamp our product portfolio, leading to ARPU improvement despite a lower subscriber base. As mentioned earlier, we partner with tech giants like Google to provide seamless telco journey for Android users, as well as with Facebook to deploy Dynamic Partial Loan for the subscribers to buy packs they need while using Facebook.
Additionally, we launched Auto-Recharge in partnership with bKash and one-tap payment solution for increased customer convenience. We are working with our government partner, a2i, to bring convenient and scalable solutions to our customers while they pay for different government services. Building partnership is key to bring innovation and growth in digital lifestyle. As a result of constant drive on digitalization and customer engagement, digital adoption improved this year significantly, leading to 29% reload volume, a 14.3% year-on-year growth. Additionally, we have recorded a good ARPU uplift from the users of MyGP. Due to the embargo on SIM sales, we registered a 5% lower subscriber base at the end of. We move on to our activities while on our social impact projects and empowering societies. Grameenphone's operation have always focused towards ensuring sustainable and fair business practices.
We focus on various aspects of encompassing environment, social and governance in our operations and day-to-day interactions with our stakeholders. As a part of our digital inclusion and enablement, as of 31st December 2022, Grameenphone is connecting a subscriber base of 79.1 million customers, of whom 43.6 million customers access internet and 34.2 million are empowered with 4G high-speed internet connectivity. As an equal opportunity employer, diversity and inclusion are imperative in our way we do business. Our diversity agenda broadly includes gender, skill, and competence. As of the fourth quarter of 2022, 30% of our new hires were women, while percentage of women in our total workforce reached to 18.8%, and we continue working on this area.
As a part of social impact, Digital Bangladesh Award-winning initiative, Grameenphone Accelerator ended its seventh cohort with six graduating startups with 10 times growth. Onnow, one of the leading Bangladeshi food startups and a graduate from GP Accelerator program, has launched their official app at the Digital Bangladesh Mela this year. They also secured investment from Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund. iPAGE is another startup awarded by United Nations Food Systems Summit in 2021 and BASIS National ICT Awards in 2022. Also secured multiple investment from national and global venture capital company. CMED Health, an alumni and a leading healthcare startup, was awarded Digital Bangladesh Award 2022 in an effort to ensure quality healthcare for everyone. CMED aimed to co-provide affordable and quality healthcare to 100 million Bangladeshis by the year 2020.
We are very proud of these initiatives, our Accelerator program that helps our ecosystem, our startup to grow and new initiatives coming to the market. More details of Grameenphone's ESG initiatives as well as performance KPIs are available on our website relations and social impact website. I will now welcome our CFO, Jens Becker, to take you through our financial performance for the quarter and come back at the end to summarize. Thank you. Jens.
Thank you, Azman, good morning to everybody. Let me start with a short overview of the key KPIs. Grameenphone continued to deliver a solid financial performance in Q4 with seven consecutive quarters of growth in top line and EBITDA amidst the SIM sale ban and the challenging macroeconomic and business environment during the second half of the year. Our top line and EBITDA growth momentum was supported by the acquisition deployment of the new spectrum, as Azman mentioned before, our sites rollout, price optimization, and customer-centric activity, along with improved operational cost efficiency. We registered a year-on-year growth of 4.1% in subscription and traffic revenue against 3.6% growth in last year's Q4, while year-on-year EBITDA growth was 8.2% against 2.6% growth in last year's Q4.
In Q4 2022, EBITDA growth was positively impacted by a one-off gain, resulting in an EBITDA margin of 65.2%, with 2.9 percentage points margin improvement from last year. During the quarter, Grameenphone increased its investment momentum to deploy the mentioned 60 Mhz additional spectrum acquired in Q1 of 2022 in the 2,600 MHz band, along with our continued network expansion and our modernization initiatives to improve customer experience. With the continuous investment effort at the end of Q4, GP's CapEx to sales ratio for the quarter stood at 11.5% based on the four-quarter moving average, while on standalone basis for the quarter CapEx to sales ratio for the... stood at 13.3%. Despite solid growth in top line and EBITDA, Grameenphone registered a year-on-year degrowth in EPS.
The degrowth in EPS, earnings per shares, mainly resulted from taking provision for a regulatory dispute following relevant international financial reporting standards based on the available information of the verbal judgment in court proceedings. Upon receiving the written judgment, Grameenphone will take the necessary steps subject to further assessment. I'll come back to this later. On reported basis, EPS for the quarter therefore stood at BDT 2.75, with a degrowth of 54.5% from last year, while for the full year, EPS degrew by 11.8%. Let me start with the details. Starting with the subscriber base. Grameenphone subscriber growth has been impacted throughout the quarter due to the reinforced SIM sale restrictions on recycled numbers during the quarter.
However, GP was actively engaged with the regulators and met the expected parameter for quality of service as specified by the regulators. As a consequence of all our efforts, the regulator has uplifted the SIM sale restriction on 3rd January 2023. However, at the end of Q4 2022, Grameenphone subscriber base decreased by 5% from last year to 79.1 million, while the number of data users decreased by 2.2% year-on-year to 43.6 million. Despite having degrowth in our subscriber base in Q4, Grameenphone's 4G data users continued to grow and reached 34.2 million, with 23.6% growth from last year. This was possible because of our continued effort to enhance the 4G network experience. Grameenphone subscription market share also got impacted as subscriber acquisition was restricted till December 2022.
According to BTRC published information as of November 2022, GP subscription market share stood at 44.4%, which is a 0.8% lower compared to last quarter. Next page. Grameenphone registered seven consecutive quarters of growth in total revenue and daily subscription and traffic revenue. Total revenue grew by 3.5% in Q4 after a 6.7% growth in the last quarter. The growth in total revenue slowed down in Q4 as subs and traffic revenue growth momentum was impacted due to the accumulated impact of no gross add for 6 months and the tense macroeconomic environment. The growth in total revenue was mainly driven by the 4.1% growth of subscription and traffic revenue due to the growth in bundle and data. Turning to the revenue details.
As customer experience is always put first at Grameenphone, and in order to meet the growing customer demand, improve network performance, GP invested in spectrum acquisition over the course of two years. In addition, Grameenphone kept providing exclusive data-only products, customer-focused package deals, and improved digital experiences. As a result, compared to last year, data revenue and bundle revenue increased by 11.9% and 2.6% respectively, which contributed to 4.1% growth in subscription and traffic revenue. Next slide. As said before, Grameenphone reinforced its value propositions with appealing market offers underpinned by ongoing spectrum rollout and 4G network development to ensure a better customer experience. As a result, GP's average megabyte per user grew by 38.8% from last year. However, quarter-on-quarter data usage growth remains stable due to lower data subs as a result of SIM sale restriction.
Service ARPU increased by 7.9% in Q4 after 5.9% growth in the last quarter. The growth in service ARPU was mainly driven by higher contribution from data, bundle, and as well the voice segment. Turning to the bottom line results. Grameenphone managed to deliver consecutive seven quarters in growth in EBITDA, despite having a challenging business environment and intense macroeconomic situation during the second half of the year. On reported basis, Grameenphone's EBITDA increased by 8.2% in Q4, with a margin of 65.2%. The year-on-year growth in EBITDA was mainly contributed by top-line growth, of course, and a positive one-off negotiation outcome with a related party supplier, as well as efficient cost management.
Excluding the significant one-off effects in Q4 2022, EBITDA would have increased by 1.5% year-on-year. OpEx for the quarter stood at BDT 11 billion, with a year-on-year 0.9% degrowth on a reported basis, impacted by the mentioned positive one-off negotiation outcome with a related party supplier. Next page. GP invested BDT 5 billion CapEx excluding license lease and RoU during the quarter, focusing mainly towards our 4G network, coverage expansion and spectrum deployment. GP rolled out 2,300+ new 4G sites and 1,700 new coverage sites in the last 12 months. In addition, as of Q4 2022, GP deployed 10.4 MHz spectrum in more than 18,000+ sites, along with deployment of 60 MHz spectrum acquired in 2022.
At the end of the quarter, the number of 4G sites reached 19,601. During the quarter, 4G population coverage reached 97.9%, with 1.1 percentage points increase from last year, which was 96.8% 4G population coverage in Q4 2021. Turning to net profit. Net profit for the quarter stood at BDT 3.7 billion with a margin of 9.9%. On reported basis, the year-on-year 54.5% degrowth in net profit mainly resulted from higher finance costs due to taking provision for a regulatory dispute following relevant IFRSs based on the available information of the verbal judgment in the court proceedings, along with the currency devaluation and higher depreciation.
On an underlying basis, NPAT degrew by 6.5% year-on-year, mainly driven by higher Forex loss due to currency devaluation and higher depreciation and interest on leasing liabilities due to an increased total network site and spectrum acquisition. Next slide. Net debt stood at BDT 1.8 billion as of Q4 2022, in combination of BDT 5 billion short-term bank loan and BDT 3.2 billion cash balance excluding the restricted cash. Compared to previous quarter, net debt position improved by BDT 7.1 billion, mainly due to BDT 8.7 billion reduction in short-term loans. Operating cash flow for the quarter stood at BDT 19.5 billion, with a year-on-year BDT 3.4 billion growth in combination of BDT 1.9 billion higher EBITDA and BDT 1.5 billion lower CapEx.
Regarding contribution to the National Exchequer, till Q4 2022, GP has paid BDT 104.3 billion, equaling 69.3% of its total revenue to the National Exchequer in the form of taxes, VAT, duties, license and spectrum assignment fees. Since inception, GP contributed BDT 1,061 billion or in crore, BDT 106,076 crore to the National Exchequer. Coming to the dividend proposal. The board of directors of Grameenphone have recommended BDT 9.5 per share as final dividend for 2022 at the board meeting held on 30th January 2023. This, the total cash dividend stands at 220% of paid up capital, including 125% for the interim cash dividend, which represents 98.72% of profit after tax for the year 2022.
The shareholders, as of the record date of 26th February 2023, will be entitled for its final dividend, which is subject to the shareholders' approval at the 26th annual general meeting to be held on 2nd May 2023. I will now hand back to Azman to summarize and wrap up. Thank you.
Thank you, Jens. The first nine months of 2022 registered growth momentum, as you highlighted, with increasing trend driven by higher usage and revenue, and a strong market execution and strategic focus on network investment to improve our customer experience. We have obviously faced external challenges from the macroeconomic climate and regulatory environment, which have dampened our top-line performance. However, with strong teamwork, Grameenphone remains committed to delivering value for our customers and shareholders, and we continue our investment to develop even a stronger network, innovation and modernization initiatives that will help us to cater to the constantly evolving connectivity needs of our customer, both in consumer and business segments. I'll stop here, and I will hand back to Maureen for Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, Azman. We will wait a few minutes for questions to start coming in. Jens, I have a question for you. This is from IDLC. Why did your earnings crash in the last quarter?
Okay. Let me take that. Despite that you have seen we have a solid growth in top line and EBITDA, we have registered a year-on-year degrowth in EPS. The degrowth in EPS is mainly due to the event on 10th January 2023, as Azman has mentioned. The Honorable Appellate Division, the AD court, has verbally pronounced the judgment of the 2G license renewal dispute, disallowing the appeal of Grameenphone and allowing the appeals of the National Board of Revenue, NBR. Which means that value-added tax will be applicable for payments to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, BTRC, in addition to the principal, and Grameenphone will not get rebate for the said input VAT. Based on the verbal judgment, the necessary provisions has been made following the relevant International Financial Reporting Standards.
Upon receiving written judgment, Grameenphone will take necessary steps subject to the further assessment, including for the relevant parts of the BTRC audit demand which consists this issue. Details are disclosed in note 45 C in our financial statements. Besides this, the NPAT growth further was impacted by the currency devaluation and higher depreciation.
Jens, I have a follow-up to this question. Is this it or will there be more provision to come on this topic?
Yeah. It has mainly increased for the provision of the regulatory disputes. We have to see now how the written judgment, the verbal pronunciation has no explanation, so we need to wait for the written judgment to assess this further. Too early to say now. For these topics on the provisions, just to add you also, we have some more details on the financial statements in note 21.
Thank you, Jens. We will wait a few more minutes for any further questions to come in. I understand everybody is asking us the same question, so we should have answered everyone at the same go. Jens, I have a follow-up question to the provision. Can we share the exact amount?
As mentioned before, we have the more details in the note, 45 C and 21.
Jens, we have another question. Any impact of inflation on telecom usage?
hat's what we said on the macroeconomic, tense macroeconomic situation. Of course, there's inflation, and of course, we also see that spending of consumers gets impacted by it. But you see that we also had a good, in our usage, a good pattern out of it. On telecoms usage there will be impact. There is an impact, but as you can see, we have overall growth and also we're able to monetize on the ARPU.
Jens, we have a final question. Why is the FX loss substantially higher in Q4 even though depreciation mostly happened in Q2 and Q3? What is the major source?
Yeah, let me answer. I think, not sure if I fully understand the question, but for the FX loss, actually this is a year-on-year comparison, not quarter-on-quarter, I understand. But anyhow, for the depreciation, we started with the acquired spectrum, the capitalization, so this is why there's a higher depreciation. Of course, the BDT devaluation year-on-year resulted in the higher FX loss.
Well, thank you everyone. I do not see any further questions. In case we have missed your question today, please feel free to get in touch with me. Thank you, Hasan Bhai and Jens. Have a good day.