Airtel user are continuously decreasing. The number of active SIMS of the mobile phone operator Airtel has been dropping consecutively for the last five months.
At the end of June the operator had 85 lakh 40 thousand active SIMs, while even before the end of October the number decreased by 10 lakh 78 thousand.
On Wednesday, BTRC released the number of monthly active SIMS, which revealed that at the end of October, the number of active subscribers of all telecom operators was 11 crore 89 lakhs 32 thousand. During this time, only 5 lakh subscribers have been added.
The number of active SIMs by the end of September was 11 crore 84 lakh 93 thousand. A primary reason for a greater influence on the numbers is due to the massive drop in the number of Airtel SIMs. The operator has seen a drop of 4 lakh 35 thousand in the number of SIMs in just one month.
Like Airtel, CityCell has also been losing subscribers for a while now. Since last May, the oldest mobile phone operator has seen a decrease in subscribers for 6 straight months. At the end of May, the active users of the operator were 14 lakh 33 thousand, in 6 months CityCell lost 1 lakh 4 thousand subscribers and the total number of subscribers came down to 13 lakh 29 thousand at the end of October.
BTRC has sent the operator a final notice to cancel their license since they have not been able to make payments in the amount of Tk.249 crore. Similarly, the company is in dire straits after having taken loans in the amount of Tk. 2 thousand 3 hundred crore from various banks.
According to the commission’s report, at the end of October Grameenphone had 5 crore 7 lakh active SIMs, Banglalink had 3 crore 4 lakh 98 thousand, Robi had 2 crore 51 lakh and Teletalk had 37 lakh 85 thousand active SIMs.
On the flipside, the number of internet subscribers for the month of October was 22 lakh, which added to a total number of 4 crore 44 lakh subscribers. About 4 crore 15 lakh SIMs are connected to the internet via mobile phones.