Bangladesh ended March with more than 174.6 million mobile phone subscribers, up from 173.3 million in February, revealed the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
The telecom regulator disclosed the subscriber number considering the biometrically verified subscriptions who have any activity including voice, data, and SMS transactions at least once in the preceding 90 days.
Among all mobile operators, Robi Axiata Ltd, the second-largest operator in the country, received the highest with nearly 400,000 new users while market leader Grameenphone and No 3 Banglalink each got 300000 new subscribers.
Currently, Grameenphone's total subscribers stand at 80.7 million while Robi has 51.9 million, Banglalink 36.2 million, and state-owned Teletalk 5.6 million.
In terms of mobile SIM subscriber growth, the growth rate of mobile SIM subscribers is lower in February-March as compared to January-February.
Meanwhile, the total number of Internet subscribers reached 116.1 million in March; says a separate report of BTRC.
A large part of the new Internet customers consists of cell phone users – 3.1 million – who recently subscribed to Internet services of different mobile operators, whereas broadband Internet providers received only 200000 new users.