Home ›› 19 Feb 2023 ›› Front
The number of both mobile and internet subscribers in the country continued to drop over the last six months of 2022, according to the latest data of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
The data also showed that local handset production has also declined remarkably.
Experts say that current inflation in the country and the ban on sales of new SIM cards of the largest mobile operator, Grameenphone, have impacted both the internet and mobile user-base.
Mobile subscribers
According to the BTRC data, the number of mobile subscribers dropped by 45 lakh to 18.02 crore in December 2022 from 18.45 crore in June 2022, followed by 18.40 crore in July, 18.36 crore in August, 18.14 crore in September, 18.16 crore in October and 18.09 crore in November.
The subscribers declined mainly due to the telecom regulator’s ban on Grameenphone’s SIM card sales since June 29 last year. GP lost its user-base of over 50 lakh during the same period.
Grameenphone Ltd Head of Communications Khairul Basher said, “Firstly, there had been fall due to unavailability of SIMs. People use multiple SIMs. As we could not bring more customers than we lost, the decline occurs in the customer base.”
Due to the decline in mobile subscribers, the internet subscriber base is also shrinking, he added.
“Another problem is inflation or the macro-economic crisis, which reduced the people’s purchasing power. The new pricings of internet packages have also impacted internet use,” he said.
Drop in internet use too
The BTRC data showed that the number of internet users declined to 12.44 crore in December last year from 12.62 crore in June, down by 18 lakh.
The number of internet users was 12.76 crore in July, followed by 12.63 crore in August, 12.62 crore in September, 12.50 crore in October and 12.44 crore in November.
In the first half of 2022, it showed an upward trend with 12.19 crore subscribers in January. The number rose to 12.62 crore in June and reached the highest-ever mark in July with 12.76 crore users before the number started to fall.
However, broadband internet connections, which saw a massive growth during the Covid-19 pandemic, remained upward 1.19 crore which was 1.14 crore in the last six months of 2022.
According to the new population census, about 65 million people of the country’s total population aged five or above do not use internet.
Local handset manufacturers suffer
Local handset production was 28.95 lakh units in June, which dropped to 17.53 lakh units in December, down by around 11.50 lakh units.
The production was 20.36 lakh, 29.70 lakh, 22.27 lakh, 21.99 lakh, 17.21 lakh, and 17.53 lakh units the following months after June.
The production of smartphone in Bangladesh dropped by around 50 per cent month-on-month last December due to rising dollar prices and soaring inflation.
The BTRC data showed that only 3.21 lakh units of 4G-supported smartphones--18.30 per cent of the total handsets produced--were manufactured in local factories. This was the lowest in the year.
Both production and sales of costly smartphones have decreased due to dollar price increase and soaring inflation that led the people to tighten their belts, according to industry insiders.
“Both sales and production especially smartphone sales started falling in April last year, which dealt a blow to manufacturers, compared to the same period of the previous year,” said Mohammad Mesbah Uddin, chief marketing officer of Fair Electronics, Samsung’s local assembling and manufacturing partner.
“The manufacturers are not producing handsets at their previous rate as the costs of production have surpassed the affordable sales price and it is becoming tough to synchronise between manufacturing costs and selling prices,” he added.
