Bangladesh mobile phone users hit 50 million

The total number of mobile phone users in impoverished Bangladesh has hit 50 million, making it one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the region, officials said Thursday.

The country's telecoms regulator said mobile phone subscribers crossed 50.4 million at the end of September, meaning more than one in three people in one of the poorest countries in the world has a cell phone.

Bangladesh issued its first mobile phone licence in 1993, but growth was slow in the first 10 years, with total subscribers reaching just 1.5 million in the early 2003.

However, the Bangladesh economy has grown rapidly in recent years, fuelled by a better-than-expected flow of remittances, and the prices for phone use have fallen sharply due to competition.

In 2003, the cost of a national call was around 7 taka (10 US cents) a minute, but is now around 1 taka per minute.

Grameenphone, majority-owned by Norwegian firm Telenor, was a key driver in the growth with almost half, or 22 million, of the total subscribers with the company.

"The first 50 million has taken 15 years to reach. I feel that in the right business environment, the next 50 million subscribers will happen much faster," Grameenphone's chief executive officer Oddvar Hesjedal said.

Bangladesh has six mobile phone operators, with five owned by top emerging market companies such as Axiata of Malaysia and Orascom of Egypt. State-owned Teletalk is the bottom-placed operator.

Earlier this month, World Bank research showed that every 10 percent increase in mobile phone connections brings about an increase of 0.6 percent in economic growth. AFP