Bangladesh cellphone sector grows by 144pc

Bangladesh mobile phone sector witnessed a 144 per cent growth in 2005, with the number of users rising to 9.4 million in December from 3.85 million a year ago, market sources said.

The highest ever growth in cellphone users raised the mobile tele-density to 6.7 per cent from 2.75 per cent during the period.

As most leading cell phone companies have expanded their network, amid stiff competition, to the remotest parts of the country, bringing 90 per cent of the population under network coverage, officials of the mobile phone companies predicted that the market would double to around 18 million next year.

The GrameenPhone, which had a subscriber base of 2.4 million in December 2004, doubled the number to five million covering 60 per cent of the market, said Syed Yamin Bakht, general manager of the company. The AKTEL maintained its second position by raising its subscriber base to 2.6 million from only 1.1 million in a year. Fazlur Rahman, director of AKTEL's owning company TM International Bangladesh Ltd, told the news agency that although it had a target of reaching three million subscriber-base this year, it remained behind the target. However, it would be achieved within a short time, he added.

Sheba Telecom, which was taken over by Egyptian company Orascom a year ago, managed to take the third position, by aggressively marketing its service in a new brand name, Banglalink.

The Banglalink began with a subscriber base of 30,000 and raised the number to 1.1 million in the current month, a Banglalink official told the news agency Sunday.

The Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Ltd, operator of the CityCell, fell behind in the race and was placed in fourth position from the third place a year ago. Intekhab Mahmud, senior vice president (marketing) of the CityCell, told the news agency that CityCell's subscriber base rose to 5,00,000 from 350,000 a year ago.

The smallest operator so far is the state-run Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd, which after launching its service in March managed to create a subscriber base of 2,00,000. Growth in the country of 140 million population will remain explosive, Aminul Hassan, general manager of the Teletalk, said, adding there was potential for growth of the market and the subscriber base of mobile phones can easily be raised to 70 million.

The Warid Telecom of the United Arab Emirates is going to launch its service in Bangladesh as the sixth mobile phone company soon. Officials in the telecom sector said it would make the market more competitive and facilitate further reduction in the call charges and improvement in services.