Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Mobile phone operators are struggling to retain their active subscribers despite offering lucrative packages, including free minutes, SMS and extra data, as the coronavirus-induced economic downturn has affected all sectors and curtailed people’s income.

Though the government has declared telecom as an essential service during the lockdown time, more than 46 lakh active users, or 2.77 per cent of the total subscriber base, left the mobile networks in March-May, which the sector people term a rare phenomenon.

The slump in numbers is mostly from the low-income group, who were living in the city but left for their village after their livelihoods were wiped off by the pandemic.

Insiders said an increased tax rate from the second week of June also badly impacted the industry, which will be visible when the last month’s report on subscriber numbers will come out.

As of May, there are 16.15 crore active connections of all four carriers, which was 16.61 crore at the end of February, according to the latest report of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) published this week.

Industry insiders estimate that active connections might have gone down further to 16 crore in June.

In March, when coronavirus began to wreak havoc, the industry lost six lakh connections, and in April, when the countrywide lockdown was tightened, another 26 lakh numbers went off.

In May, 14 lakh active users stopped taking service, according to the BTRC report.

“We have long been saying that the coronavirus pandemic will hit the mobile phone industry hard,” said SM Farhad, general secretary of the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB).

The downward curve of active users reflects how it has fallen drastically from early this year though the mobile phone is now the primary communication tool for all sorts of business, education and entertainment.

People’s income has gone down drastically as many retail stores were closed during the lockdown, while people had limited access to recharge points.

“So, it’s a cumulative effect that resulted in downward growth. I’m afraid how the users will react in the coming days as the government has imposed an extra tax on mobile phone use,” Farhad added.

Though the number of active SIMs has fallen, internet connections have increased both in mobile and broadband segments during the pandemic.

At the beginning of March, active internet connections were a few thousand less than 10 crore and at the end of May, the number crossed 10.21 crore.