Bangladesh lost both mobile, net subscribers for six months in a row

Bangladesh continued to lose both mobile and internet subscribers for six consecutive months last year, according to the latest data by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

During the period, the industry lost 1.2 million mobile subscribers and 1.7 million internet subscribers, totaling loss of 11.07 million internet subscribers and 8.50 million mobile users.

This reduction brought the total number of internet subscribers down to 131.10 million from 132.80 million in November, according to the available BTRC data.

The number of mobile users reached to 187.58 million from 188.78 million in November.

All cellphone operators, except the state-owned Teletalk, have witnessed a decline in subscriptions for six straight months up to November.

The BTRC calculated the total number of mobile users by adding new SIM card purchases and removing SIMs that have been inactive for more than 18 months.

Before starting to drop, the number of total cellphone users gradually rose for five consecutive months until June, according to the BTRC data.

In Bangladesh, the number of mobile phone subscribers is higher than its population, but the actual number of individual users is much lower.

This rise in the number of users is due to a strategy that allows each person to own up to 15 SIM cards, thereby inflating the subscriber counts.

According to the BTRC, internet subscriber means the users who have accessed the internet at least once in the preceding 90 days.

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