Mobile subscribers grow in Oct after several months of continuous decline

Business Desk :
After four months of continuous decline following Grameenphone’s SIM sale ban due to alleged poor quality of service, the number of mobile subscribers in the country has finally seen growth in October.
According to the latest data from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the number of mobile subscribers increased by more than 200,000 in October from that of a month earlier, hitting 181.6 million.
Banglalink, one of the country’s top operators could be attributed to the growth, as it is the only operator to gain subscribers during the period.
The operator’s subscribers increased by 900,000 to 39.2 million in the month whereas it fell for all other mobile phone operators.
On a year-on-year basis, the operator’s customers grew by 5.45% in October.
“Our fastest network, which has been certified by Ookla and the standard of digital experience it provides, has been pushing consumers to choose Banglalink,” Ankit Sureka, the head of Corporate Communications and Sustainability at Banglalink told this reporter.
“Moreover, our consistent effort to expand network coverage in the country has also played a major role. So far this year, we have successfully installed 4,000 BTS, taking our total to 14,000. It increased our coverage by nearly 40%. We also became the first operator in the country to deploy the newly acquired 2.3 GHz band spectrum to enhance customer experience, which helped us enhance our service quality and grow our consumer base,” the top brass said.
Apart from that, he also said that Banglalink acquired the exclusive broadcasting rights of Fifa World Cup 2022 and made promotions of streaming it through Toffee, the largest digital entertainment platform in the country.
This also attracted new customers for Banglalink, according to Sureka.
In contrast, Robi, the second largest operator in the country, lost 80,000 subscribers and its user base reached 54.28 million from 54.36 million.
State-owned Teletalk also lost a small number of subscribers as it dropped to 6.75 million from 6.78 million in October.
On the other hand, the country’s top operator Grameenphone lost about 500,000 customers during the same period with total subscribers standing at 81.4 million in October.
On a year-on-year basis, the number of Gramenphone subscribers decreased by 3.21%.
According to sources at the operator, ever since the ban was imposed, it had adverse impacts on the overall growth and development of the industry. It also deprived the customers of freedom of choice and buying rights.