Laptop sales have increased immensely from 26,000 units to over 500,000 in the country in about eight years, said organisers of the recently-held laptop fair in the city.
They also expressed satisfaction over the sale of more laptops than targeted.
"The fairs have seen the sales exceed the target for the last five years," said Muhammad Khan, one of the organisers of the laptop fair held annually.
"We sold around 5,000 laptops at the three-day fair," he added.
Khan also pointed out that the discount offered in the fair worked as a driving force behind the rise in sales.
Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS) President Ali Ashfaq said the demand for laptop has increased as students and corporate offices have started using them because of the ease of working on the go.
Moreover, experts cited the government's recent initiative to slash import duty on computer hardware as a prime factor helping the sector grow further.
Laptop brand Acer's representative Deloar Hossain said usually, "We sell laptops on 4-5 per cent discount" in the fair.
Visitors at the fair urged the organiser to arrange similar events in divisional and district levels keeping in mind the necessity of local students.
The government's decision to provide incentive on export of software, services, IT and hardware is helping the computer business increase further, experts said.
The ICT division of the government is providing laptops to computer labs set up for students across the country skipping the idea of giving desktop. This further increased the demand for laptop, General Secretary of Bangladesh Open Source Network Monir Hasan mentioned.
Country's privately-owned banks, under the leadership of Bangladesh Bank, could undertake projects to provide laptops to school and college students, he added.
The project 'one student, one laptop' which was taken in 2014 by the government needs to be expanded further to meet the goal of building a digital Bangladesh, observed Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) President Mustafa Jabbar.
Education ministry and ICT division jointly need to take an initiative to launch a long-term mega project to promote use of laptop in imparting primary education, he said.
But, to meet the goal, academic contents must be developed and made available for learning; otherwise it could not bring any change, he pointed out.
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