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September 30 2009
Mobile phone operators added
a mere 0.94 million customers
to their networks in August
2009, as customers were
awaiting new offers by the
operators in September.
However, industry insiders
said sales rose significantly
in September as a majority
number of operators came
forward with new offers
during mid Ramadan.
According to Bangladesh
Telecommunication and
Regulatory Commission (BTRC)
statistics released
yesterday, the six mobile
operators provided mobile
phone services to 48.91
million subscribers till
August 2009. The total number
of mobile phone subscribers
was 47.97 million in July.
The top mobile operator,
Grameenphone, lost 0.02
million customers in August.
The company's sales dropped,
as it did not lower
connection charges, while
some other operators cut
connection rates from Tk 800
to below Tk 300.
BTRC statistics show that the
total number of customers for
Grameenphone dropped to 21.13
million in August from 21.15
million in July 2009.
The number of subscribers for
the market's second largest
operator, Banglalink, reached
11.9 million in August, up
from 11.27 million in July.
AKTEL crossed the 10 million
subscriber mark in August,
rising from 9.90 million in
July.
Warid totalled 2.63 million
customers, Citycell recorded
1.97 million and TeleTalk
recorded 1.08 million in
August 2009.
Despite a 32 percent
penetration rate for
Bangladesh, there are debates
over how many people actually
use the mobile phone.
Zakiul Islam, president of
Association of Mobile Telecom
Operators in Bangladesh, said
the telecom regulator should
come forward with a unified
subscriber reporting format
so that the actual number of
users can be seen.
Source: The Dailystar
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