Non-tax revenue from telecom sector dips 12.5% in FY20

The government's non-tax revenue collection from different telecommunications services declined by 12.5% in the 2019-20 fiscal year, shows data by the telecom regulator.

The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC), on behalf of the government, collects a percentage of revenue from all types of telecom operators. A large portion of the telecom regulator’s non-tax revenue comes from the telecom operators’ revenue sharing.

According to BTRC data, the total revenue collection from all operators was Tk1,677 crore in the last fiscal year — down from Tk1,916 crore in FY2018-19.

Industry operators said the figure indicates low earnings of different telecom businesses in the country. They said business had been impacted severely in the last quarter of the previous fiscal year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Moreover, high taxes were also a reason for lower revenue, they added.

"Declining revenue collection by BTRC simply means all operators earned less. The Covid-19 pandemic and high taxes played a critical role," a senior industry official said.

Until June 2020, BTRC had 3,465 licensees in 29 different categories who share a percentage of their revenues with it.

A recent study by the GSM Association — the global organisation for mobile operators — found that data witnessed a growth in Bangladesh in the second quarter of FY2019-20, but declining voice revenue pushed down overall business.

Mobile internet subscriptions grew by 13 percentage points during the pandemic, whereas the demand for voice calls fell by 0.5 percentage points.

"The increase in data consumption was not sufficient to offset overall revenue decline with operators seeing a decrease in service revenue," reads the report published last month.

In the last two months, however, mobile phone operators also lost a significant number of internet customers.

Telecom operators lost 2.01 lakh internet users in November after the loss of 3.72 lakh customers in the previous month.

Similarly, the international gateway (IGW) operators who carry international incoming and outgoing calls witnessed a drop in the business.

International calls were one of the government's key sources for revenue from the telecom sector a few years back.

In the last fiscal year, incoming calls through IGW declined to 70 crore minutes from 84 crore minutes, while outgoing calls declined to 64 lakh minutes from 94 lakh minutes.