How did the Covid-19 pandemic impact the telecom industry in terms of commercial and operational perspectives?
The Covid-19 pandemic has posed several challenges to the telecom industry, but we managed to curb their overall impacts through our timely responses and strategic initiatives.
First, we had to switch to a "home office" work model in order to ensure the safety of our employees, while keeping our services up and running.
The second quarter of the current year was also challenging from the overall business perspective, as the nationwide shutdown, flood, and cyclone heavily affected economic activities across the country.
During that period, we witnessed an initial decline in revenue. As life started to make a comeback to normalcy, the telecom industry is expected to gradually reach close to its previous level.
Do you find any silver lining in the ongoing pandemic as a telecom expert?
People’s lifestyles have undergone many changes during the pandemic. Most importantly, it has made people realize how digital services can keep them connected, and cater to many of their needs when the normal course of life is affected by such a global crisis.
I feel that it will fast forward the adoption of digital products and services. For example, our digital entertainment platform ‘Toffee’ and self-care app ‘My Banglalink’ are growing robustly at double the pace of their pre-pandemic growths.
It clearly shows that customers have become more accustomed to using various digital services in this period. This significant shift in customers’ behavior is encouraging us to introduce more digital services.
What are the digital services the telecom industry is to introduce to cope with the digital transformation?
The ongoing digital transformation of the telecom industry is pushing the operators to bring more innovative digital services. Banglalink is consistently trying to address customers’ needs and bringing new services.
The use of digital service has increased remarkably in Bangladesh as both rural and urban customers are already accustomed with these services.
To ensure customers’ access to such services, we are expanding the 4G network, and trying to introduce affordable data packages.
Availability of high-speed mobile internet across the country coupled with affordable smartphones is going to accelerate digital adoption in the country.
Does the regulatory framework favour the telecom operators' efforts to bring more digital facilities for customers?
The regulatory authorities have always supported the telecom operators in bringing digital facilities for customers. However, we think that a number of key regulatory moves could facilitate our digital initiatives further.
For example, if the spectrum were provided to us at an affordable price, it would help us to bring more cost-effective services for customers by reducing our operational costs significantly.
Moreover, a few regulatory initiatives could be taken to bring cohesion among all the parties operating in the telecom ecosystem. It is also necessary to take more stringent measures as part of the SMP (Significant Market Power) regulation move, and last but not the least; the existing tax regime should be revised to reduce the financial pressure on the operators.
How do you feel upon receiving Ookla’s recognition for Banglalink as the fastest mobile network in the country?
The prestigious award is a recognition of the consistent efforts we have made in recent times to give superior digital experiences to our customers. Along with expanding our high-speed 4G network across the country, we have been focusing on bringing value-for-money digital services. Our super-fast and cost-effective mobile internet has enabled customers to access various digital services with more convenience. As a result of our efforts, Banglalink managed to register a 30.3% year-on-year data revenue growth in Q2 2020. We are still in the process of adapting to the ‘new normal’, and expect to bring more digital services that are relevant to our customers under the changed circumstances.
Tell us about the secret of better performance in the first two quarters of 2020.
As soon as the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country, we started anticipating its possible consequences, and prepared ourselves accordingly. We took several initiatives to fulfill customers’ voice and internet needs during the shutdown period.
Banglalink already made significant progress in digitalizing its functionalities as part of its efforts to transform into a full-fledged digital organization.
The efforts we made in this regard contributed significantly to maintaining the satisfactory results.
