Overcoming a modest setback at the end of last year, mobile phone operators in Bangladesh revamped to a growth in both new connections and internet users.
In January, mobile phone users increased by 555,000 to 150 million while total internet users stood at 90.1 million, according to the latest statistics of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) released on Sunday.
Apart from the market leader Grameenphone, remaining operators lost customers in last December as effective SIM connections declined by 590,000 in the period along with the fall of 470,000 internet connections.
But, all the operators in January regained the upward trend of both new connections and internet users.
After January, customer base of Grameenphone stood at 73m followed by Robi 46.9m, Banglalink 30..m crore and lone state-own operator Teletalk had a base of around 380,000 customers.
Meanwhile, the much awaited mobile number portability (MNP) was introduced in October last which has brought opportunity for the users to switch to another operator retaining the existing number.
Market insiders said the MNP has pushed the growth of mobile phone users in a sluggish trend.
BTRC statistics showed the total number of mobile phone based internet users rose to 85.6m in January followed by WiMAX 6,000, and ISP and PSTN 57,000.
