The number of active mobile phone users of the country crossed the 10-crore mark for the first time in April as five mobile operators, except Citycell, added 13.34 lakh subscribers in the month.
Earlier in September 2012, the number of total mobile users had hit 9.85-crore mark before the regulators tightened the SIM registration process.The subscriber base was near 9 crore in April 2012 with the mobile penetration rate of 61.83 per cent which increased to 66.36 per cent in this month.
‘It proves our effort and commitment to the industry and we are doing our job in the right direction,’ Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission chairman Sunil Kanti Bose told New Age on Tuesday.
The increasing number of mobile phone users indicates that the connectivity is increasing which has a positive impact on social and economic development of the country, he said.
‘Now we will focus on betterment of the services of the users and also hope that the number of users will reach near 10.20 crore by the end of this financial year,’ he said.
Officials of the mobile phone companies said the industry started getting back into track in last three months after witnessing a decline in subscribers in the fourth quarter of the last year.
They said the BTRC move to impose tight regulation on the SIM registration process was the key reason for the decline which the companies could recover through convincing offers to the subscribers.
According to the latest data of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, the total active mobile subscribers of the country increased to around 10.12 crore in April from 9.98 crore in March.
Among the six operators, Grameenphone continued the leading position by adding 5.8 lakh subscribers which took its total subscriber base to 4.23 crore. The GP had added 7.89 lakh subscribers in March.
The GP had added 66 thousand subscribers in February and 3.15 lakh in January after losing nearly 9 lakh subscribers in the previous three months.
Banglalink added 3.88 lakh subscribers in April, taking the total subscriber base to 2.63 crore. Banglalink had added 73 thousand subscribers in March and 23 thousand in February. Banglalink had lost around 12 lakh subscribers in the previous four months.
The total subscribers of Robi reached to 2.16 crore in April by adding 2.94 lakh new subscribers in the month. Robi had added 1.12 lakh in March, 15 thousand in February and 97 thousand
subscribers in January. In December, Robi had lost 77 thousand subscribers.
Airtel added 85 thousand subscribers in April, taking the total subscribers to 75.57 lakh. Airtel had added 1.7 lakh subscribers in March, 15 thousand in February and 97 thousand subscribers in January. Airtel had added 2.81 lakh subscribers in the previous four months.
The number of Citycell users declined by 26 thousand in April which take the total users at 14.25 lakh. Citycell had lost 8 thousand users in March and 1.75 lakh subscribers in the previous five months.
The subscriber base of state-run mobile operator Teletalk increased by 13 thousand in April taking the total user base to 18.44 lakh. In March, Teletalk had added 1.39 lakh subscribers after adding 4 thousand subscribers in February.
Bangladesh issued its first mobile licence in 1993 but the growth had been slow in the first 10 years, with the total number of subscribers reaching just 15 lakh in early 2003.
But the mobile market started growing rapidly in 2003 and the number of mobile users hit 5 crore in 2009.
-With New Age input
