Telcos in a good spot
The Covid-19 pandemic is going for a heavy toll on the telecom operators, because they saw a 2 per cent decline in their clientele in the past two months, according to info from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
In March, Grameenphone, Teletalk, Banglalink and Robi collectively shed about 12 lakh effective connections for voice services but witnessed a rise in internet service utilization as well.
In April, with the revenue of innovative connections having considerably slowed, the problem spiralled uncontrollable with all four carriers losing a total of around 24 lakh and 20 lakh users for voice and internet services respectively.
Operators now dread that more injury could come to the sector found in the coming days thanks the combined effect of the coronavirus outbreak and higher taxes.
The finance ministry's decision to improve supplementary duty on mobile phone services from 10 to 15 % in the cover fiscal 2020-21 comes as another blow to the telecom sector, which has already been reeling from the coronavirus fallout, officials of the four carriers said.
Customers will will have to fork out Tk 133.25 to acquire services worth Tk 100 as a result of tax hike, they added.
Considering the telecom industry's current circumstances, the Covid-19 fallout has dealt quite a blow to Bangladesh's socio-economic development as other sectors were likewise impacted, said SM Farhad, secretary general of the Association of Portable Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB).
"People are communicating much less now than they did prior to the pandemic and organic development has been declining due to the lockdown."
Echoing Farhad's sentiment, the country's leading cellular operator, Grameenphone, explained the pandemic features taken a significant toll on countless socio-economic factors, resulting in a reduction in customer acquisition for telecom services.
But although minimal new connections are appearing registered amid the coronavirus outbreak, it really is a basic phenomenon for a sigificant number of users to be inactive every month, according to various sector insiders.
"We issued new quantities to create up for the dip in revenue but as a result of lockdown, our sellers can't open their outlets while distributors can't deliver the merchandise. That's why our different connections remain unsold," explained a senior executive of a reputed carrier requesting anonymity.
During the government released nationwide closure from March 26 to May 30 to regulate the distributed of coronavirus, all economical activities were turn off, leading to massive losses for some businesses.
Despite having the 'general holiday' having since finished, the number of coronavirus conditions continues to go up in Bangladesh, forcing the federal government to extend lockdown types of procedures in severely affected zones even while keeping social distancing rules in place.
And with buyers remaining at home to protect themselves from infections, many users didn't recharge their accounts and subsequently had their connections take off, said Shahed Alam, mind of corporate and regulatory officer for Robi.
Robi believes the quantity of clients would bounce back again to normal following the end of the lockdown. However, a fresh phenomenon emerged following 5 % hike in supplementary duty for all portable services.
"Users now restrict the money they recharge to their accounts. This has turn into another pressure for us," Alam said.
The quantity of active connections dropped from 16.53 crore in March to 16.29 crore in April, regarding to BTRC data released on Friday.
To calculate the amount of active consumers, the BTRC rules state that if any kind of SIM is not used for at least one time in a 90-evening period, it'll be considered unused or inactive.
In April, the number of active voice connections shed by Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink and the state-owned Teletalk were 9.7 lakh, 8.7 lakh, 4.9 lakh and 73,000 respectively.
Although the carriers have endured a declining trend for active connections for some months now due to regulatory issues, the combined final number of users slumped drastically from 7.65 crore towards the end of January to 7.44 crore by April.
By the end of the month, Robi was kept with 4.88 crore active voice services users despite being near the 5 crore landmark back March. Meanwhile, the quantity of consumers for Banglalink stands at 3.49 crore and Teletalk 48.40 lakh.
Similarly, the quantity of active online connections declined from 10.33 crore in March to 10.12 crore in April.
By the finish of April, there have been a complete of 9.31 crore productive mobile internet subscribers, 2,000 WiMAX users and 80.84 lakh broadband program users.
