Bangladesh has been experiencing unparalleled mobile penetration growth over the past years. And an increasing number of these users are now coming online using their handheld devices. According to data from StatCounter GlobalStats, in February 2017, more than 73% of internet users came through mobile, 25% used desktops and tablet users accounted less than 1%.
This has widespread profound implications for business, society and life. As we reported yesterday that mobile internet consumption continues to grow in the country resulting in charging data revenue for the top three telecom operators, Grameenphone, Robi and Banglalink, in the country despite the fact that the service is expensive and poor in nature in most parts of the country.
Mobile is eating the world. In February 2017, half of all global internet users accessed internet using handheld devices, and just over 45% used desktop for doing so. In Bangladesh, desktop penetration is pretty low whereas the country has a staggering 117 million mobile phone subscribers and smartphone penetration is also growing rapidly made possible, partly, by the sharp decline in smartphone price.
Over the past years, Bangladesh has experienced unprecedented growth in mobile phone penetration. Bangladesh ended February with 67.24 million active internet subscribers, up from 66.77 million in January. The country's mobile internet base reached 63.12 million in February, up from 63.07 million in the previous month, according to figures from the Bangladesh Telecommuni-cation Regulatory Commission (BTRC). The fixed-line internet user base climbed to 4 million in February this year from 3.93 million in January. The number of WiMAX subscribers declined to 89,000 in February, from 91,000 in January.
Although feature-phone dominates the overall usage, the country has also been seeing an extraordinary smartphone growth, thanks to cheap Chinese handset. This has implications not only for tech but also for many other industries. People spend an usually high amount of time with their handheld devices. Moreover, mobile allows users to do things on the go. As a result, mobile is changing how we communicate, consume, shop and transact. In the coming years, it will change many other aspects of our daily life.
Over the past years, the growth of MFS, smartphone, mobile internet, digital health services, various on-demand services and more. And we plan to do even more in the coming years. Recently, Bangladesh capital of Dhaka has been ranked 2nd among the top cities of the world with 2.2 crore active Facebook users which covers 1.1 per cent of total users. According to the industry insiders, it is result of increasing mobile users.
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