Country’s leading mobile phone company Grameenphone is getting around 1,000-1,200 3G customers a day since the commercial launch of the third-generation services in some areas of Dhaka and Chittagong on October 8, said GP chief executive officer Vivek Sood.
‘We did not expect many 3G subscriber initially as there were lots of questions among the customers about the services. We have also made the services available in selective areas and the majority of the areas of the market are yet to get the services,’ he said while presenting the company’s third quarter financial report at a programme at the Sonargaon Hotel in the city on Saturday.
He said it would take some time for the customers to understand and get familiarised with the 3G services and the number of subscribers would increase gradually.
The GP launched the 3G services on commercial basis in the Bashundhara and Baridhara area on October 8 and later expanded the services to some other areas of the city.
Country’s four private mobile operators — GP, Robi, Banglalink and Airtel — get the 3G service licences in September through an auction where each MHz 3G spectrum was sold for only $21 million.
‘We are hopeful that we will be able to bring 40 per cent of the population under the 3G network by March next year as per the rollout plan which is our one core priority at this moment,’ said Vivek.
He said GP and other operators had raised concerns over the ‘strict’ timeframe the telecom regulator mentioned in its directive on introducing mobile number portability.
‘We have 3G rollout going on and introducing MNP in such a short period of time will not be possible. The mobile operators’ association will talk to the regulator about the matter,’ he said.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission in June this year asked mobile phone operators to introduce by January, 2014 mobile number port ability service which will allow users to change operators without changing numbers.
GP made profit of Tk 573.94 crore in the third quarter (July-September) this year whereas its profit was Tk 316.16 crore in the same period last year.
The company’s profit, however, declined by Tk 210.86 crore or 16.44 per cent in January-September period of the current year compared with that in the same period of the previous year.
The earning per share of the company, however, increased to Tk 4.25 in the Q3 this year while it was Tk 2.34 in the same period last year.
-With New Age input
