The five private mobile operators saw their active connection numbers
drop in January following the government move to make biometric
verification mandatory for all subscribers.
The government launched biometric verification for SIM registration on December 16 last year.
At the end of January, the total active connections stood at 13.19
crore, down 17.64 lakh from the previous month, according to Bangladesh
Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.
Senior executives of different operators blamed the government move for the drop.
Total connections may decline further in future as sales of new SIM
cards have almost ground to a halt and lots of unused SIMs are getting
struck off.
If a SIM is not used for 90 days it can be declared inactive, according to the regulator's directive.
Another trend that has been observed following the imposition of the
biometric verification is that those who previously used multiple SIM
cards have stopped doing so. “We fear that this trend will continue for
some time. The people who perhaps bought several SIM cards are now
registering for one or two SIMs and the rest are becoming inactive,”
said a senior official of a mobile phone operator.
Leading operator Grameenphone's customer base declined to 5.62 crore
after it lost four lakh subscribers in January. Banglalink lost five
lakh subscribers last month, which brought down its customer count to
3.23 crore.
Robi's total active connections fell to 2.77 crore after it lost six lakh subscribers last month.
Airtel lost two lakh customers, which brought down its total subscriber base to 1.05 crore.
At the end of January, Citycell's subscriber base stood at 8.67 lakh after it shed 14,000 connections.
Only state-run Teletalk's subscriber base increased in January as the
operator is yet to run the biometric verification at the retail level.
Last month, it added 68,000 new connections to take its subscriber base
to 42.11 lakh.
The number of mobile internet users of Bangladesh, however, increased
to 5.34 crore in January from 5.14 crore in the previous month.
“The industry is going through a transformation because of biometric
registration. Maybe the decline is the direct effect of that,” said TIM
Nurul Kabir, general secretary of the Association of Mobile Telecom
Operators of Bangladesh.
He also expects that the transitional period will end and the industry will get back to registering growth.
