The country will connect another 11 million (1.1 crore) unique mobile customers by 2020, to join the league of top ten growing countries, a study by GSMA, the association of mobile operators, projected.
The global organisation of all the mobile operators said within the next few years, 900 million unique mobile subscribers will join worldwide, and 72 percent of that will be from the top ten countries, according to a study report titled 'The Mobile Economy'.
A unique customer is a single user who may have a single or multiple SIMs.
Currently, around 85 million unique customers are using mobile connections in the country, according to Association of Mobile Telecom Operators in Bangladesh (AMTOB), though the number of active SIMs stands at more than 120 million.
Industry experts said there is a tendency to use multiple SIMs in a market like Bangladesh.
India, already the world's second largest mobile market, will be the primary driver of this growth, with 310 million new unique subscribers expected in the period to 2020, helped by improving affordability, falling device prices and better network coverage, reads the report.
China is projected to account for 158 million new unique customers.
Other fast-growth Asian markets include Indonesia (23 million), Pakistan (17 million) and Myanmar (11 million).
Other countries on the top-ten list are Nigeria (27 million), Mexico (21 million), USA (21 million), and Brazil (18 million).
Currently, there are 4.8 billion (480 crore) active mobile users across the globe and it will be 5.7 billion by 2020, reads the report.
Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/business/bangladesh-will-add-11cr-new-mobile-users-2020-gsma-1371388