The active number of mobile phone subscribers in the country increased by 1.66 crore or 17 per cent in 2013 as the total user of six mobile operators reached to 11.37 crore at the end of the year.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission data showed the total number of mobile phone subscribers rose by 13.70 per cent in 2012 as the total subscriber was 9.71 crore in December of the year.
The Grameenphone added 68 lakh new subscribers in 2013, Robi added 42 lakh, Banglalink added 32 lakh, Teletalk added 11.71 lakh, Airtel added 11.21 lakh while Citycell lost 1.44 lakh subscribers in the last year.
The mobile companies witnessed a sharp fall in the business for three months from October to December 2012 after the government had imposed a number of new rules regarding subscriber identity module (SIM) registration.
A BTRC directive issued on October 12, 2012 barred selling any pre-activated connections and asked mobile operators to activate the SIMs after completion of registration.
The mobile companies, however, recovered the shock after three months downtrend through making convincing offers to the subscribers and the total user crossed the 10-crore mark for the first time in April.
Officials of the mobile companies said sales of SIMs rose surrounding the hype of 3G service, a fast data communication solution, which was launched in September last year.
The latest data of the telecom regulator showed that all six operators—Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi, Airtel, Citycell and Teletalk—added 20 million new subscribers since October as the total number was 11.17 at that month.
The BTRC data showed that the total subscribers of GP reached to 4.71 crore in December by adding 5 lakh subscriber since October.
The Banglalink’s total subscriber base rose to 2.88 in December from 2.83 in October.
Robi added 5 lakh new subscribers in last two months of last year as its total subscriber stood at 2.53 in December 2013.
Airtel’s total subscribers stood at 82.69 lakh in December by adding 40,000 new subscribers since October.
Citycell added 21,000 new subscribers since October as the total number of user of the company reached to 13.65 lakh in December.
The state-run Teletalk’s total subscriber reached at 28.22 lakh in December as the company added 4.82 lakh new subscribers in last two months.
-With New Age input