Bangladesh's mobile-phone operators, excepting state-owned Teletalk, have witnessed a decline in subscriptions for fourth consecutive months up to October, as per data from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.
The total number of active mobile phone subscribers in the country stood at 189.96 million in October, a decrease of 9,00,000 from 190.86 million in September.
During this period, Teletalk was the sole operator to gain subscribers, adding 3,00,000 new users in October.
Since July last, the industry lost 6.2 million subscribers.
The BTRC calculates the total number of mobile phone users by adding new SIM card purchases and removing SIMs that have been inactive for over 18 months.
Despite the drop from the previous month, the number of mobile phone users in October was still 2,90,000 higher than that in the same period of 2023.
Before starting to drop, the number of total mobile phone users gradually rose for five consecutive months before July, according to BTRC data.
In Bangladesh, the number of mobile phone subscribers is higher than the population, but the actual number of individual users is much lower.
This is due to a rule which allows each person to own up to 15 SIM cards, which inflates the subscriber count.
However, during this period the industry lost 1.44 million mobile internet subscribers.
In October, the number of internet subscribers stood at 137.18 million from 138.62 million in September.
According to BTRC, internet subscriber means subscribers who have accessed the internet at least once in the preceding 90 days.
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