Bangladesh among Asia’s top 10 mobile markets

By Editor on August 15, 2006 · Leave a Comment

has emerged as one of

‘s top 10 mobile phone markets in terms of adding net subscribers, according to the chairman of GSM Asia Pacific, a regional forum of the Generalised System of Multiple Access (GSMA) mobile operators, reports BDNEWS.
GSM Asia Pacific Chairman Mehboob Chowdhury warned that though Bangladesh the 8th top mobile market in Asia, ahead of Thailand and Philippines, it would be impossible to retain that position unless the government immediately purged the industry of the ‘counterproductive’ policies and shook up the telecom regulators.
Besides, the country has added 8.945 million GSMA mobile users in a single year — from July 2005 to June 2006, according to the latest figure of GSMA association.
In an exclusive interview with the news agency, Chowdhury disclosed thatnow ranked eighth among the top 10 Asian mobile markets in terms of adding net subscribers during January to March, 2006.
Citing the data of Informal Telecoms and Media, a London-based research firm, he saidhas had 1.265 million new users during the first quarter of 2006. The figure is slightly lower than the net addition ofandcombined, and marginally lower than seventh-ranked’s first quarter intake.
, fifth on the list, has added more than two million mobile subscribers during this period, but its total clientele was smaller than whathad in the first quarter of 2006.
GSM Asia Pacific chairman credited the cellular mobile operators with this achievement while being critical of the government’s ‘pounding the industry with disruptive policies’.
“When the operators made new connections affordable and started slashing the call charges; the government came up with this disastrous tax last year. It was a bolt from the blue (for the operators) that slowed down the market for a while.”
The new 8.945 million GSMA mobile users that have putin the global map is the result of the operators’ continuous effort, Chowdhury pointed out.
The new customers belong to the middle-to-lower income bracket that have been perennially ‘harassed’ by the state-run Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) in trying to get regular phone connections.
“The private sector has salvaged them and that’s why the subscribers identity module (SIM) tax is grossly an anti-people move, which the government should scrap ahead of the election.”
“The market could have added at least four million more customers, there could have been an euphoric outbreak of tariff war and the government could have earned more revenue from the boom (if the tax were not there)”, Chowdhury continued.
Liking the slapping of SIM tax to killing the golden goose, he said this testifies to ‘the government’s inability’ to understand the fundamentals of this business.
He refused to give the government much credit for slashing the tax from mobile phone handsets.
“The amount of tax the government has withdrawn from handset is the exact amount it has simultaneously imposed as SIM tax and the burden remains unchanged for new customers”, pointed out Chowdhury, who was GrameenPhone’s marketing director for five years and Banglalink’s Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for nearly a year until resigning recently .
He said more than two billion people use GSM mobile phones worldwide, accounting for an 82.4 per cent penetration. Asia Pacific region alone boasts 757.13 million GSMA mobile users and the figure is fast growing.
“Every second 18 new GSM users are being added worldwide, which means more than 1,000 customers in every minute and over 1.5 million new GSMA mobile users per day.”
Chowdhury said the next billion GSMA customers are mostly coming from,,,,,,and other similar economies.
He recognised continuous investment as the key component for sustainable mobile phone market growth in.
Effective telecommunications regulatory regime is, however, the precondition to wooing new investments and boosting competition.
“The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has become merely an extension of the taxation department and that is certainly not the case with,or”, he said.
“[And] That’s why the telecom markets of these South Asian countries have been consistently thriving.”
More than 85 per cent of the mobile phone users have no access to the largest fixed telephone operator BTTB, the state-owned monopoly that has little relevance in today’s mobile market, Chowdhury regretted.
“The mobile operators will not even bother to talk to the BTTB the moment the government ends its monopoly on the international voice gateway”, he predicted.
The BTTB’s denial to provide interconnection is a clear breach of the telecoms law and resents the regulator’s ‘unfair concession’ for BTTB on this issue, the former Banglalink CCO said.
The government is ‘draining’ public funds on ‘impractical projects’ like VoIP platforms, he complained.
“Besides, ignoring the country’s fundamental telecommunication needs, the government is going to waste hundreds of millions of dollars in highly debatable and grossly unproductive supplier’s credit telecoms schemes”, he added.
The government has to deploy reliable nationwide telecoms infrastructure and then ensure the private sector’s equitable access to that resource, Chowdhury suggested.
“This is what Pakistan, India and many other fast developing countries are doing and Bangladesh should waste no time to reinvent the wheel”, he remarked.