Mobile subscribers down by over 8 lakh in 2 months

The number of Grameenphone (GP) mobile subscribers has fallen drastically after the government imposed ban on sales of new SIM of the country’s largest telecom operator.

All four mobile operators - Grameenphone (GP), Banglalink, Robi and Teletalk - managed to receive 18.36 crores subscribers in August which was 18.45 crore in June, meaning that the total number of mobile subscribers dropped by 8.7 lakhs, according to the latest data of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

The government imposed the ban on new GP SIM sale on June 30 citing its failure to provide quality services that includes excessive call drops.

The largest operator lost 16.5 lakh subscribers in July and August while other three operators grabbed only 7.8 lakh new subscribers in the span of time, meaning that the number of customers gained by the other three could not make up for those lost by Grameenphone in July and August.

The total number of Grameenphone customers dropped by about 7.2 lakh in August and 9.3 lakh in July.

Robi and Banglalink added about 2.4 lakh and 1.1 lakh customers respectively in July while state-run operator Teletalk lost 40,000 subscribers. In August, Robi and Banglalink added around 2 lakh and 3 lakh respectively.

Despite the recent fall, the number of subscribers of Grameenphone remained almost unchanged year-on-year in August and still holds the industry’s top spot by a big margin, accounting for 45.30 percent of the market share based on subscribers.