The country's mobile phone operators lost more than 2.0 million subscribers in April alone, according to a Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) report published on Friday.
The number of cellular voice users dropped by 2.41 million and data users by 2.0 million in the second month of the outbreak of coronavirus in Bangladesh.
According to industry insiders, Covid-19 took its toll on the cellphone industry too like other industries.
"Coronavirus has impacted the mobile sector like other businesses for the last couple of months," Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh secretary general Brig Gen (retd) SM Farhad said.
"The number of mobile voice and internet users has dropped by 2.41 million and 2.06 million," he added.
Mr Farhad thinks people are communicating less than the previous times and organic growth is downwards due to coronavirus lockdown.
The number of mobile subscribers reached 162.920 million at the end of April while the number was 165.337 in March, according to the BTRC data.
The cellphone operators lost an estimated 7,77,000 subscribers in March when the pandemic hit the country.
Bangladesh confirmed its first Covid-19 infection on March 08.
Shahed Alam, chief corporate and regulatory officer at Robi Axiata Limited, said more than 70-per cent retail points of mobile operators were shut when lockdown or general holiday was announced.
"The scarcity of recharge points is one of the reasons behind the loss of these huge subscribers last April," he mentioned.
Of the total subscribers, the BTRC report said, Grameenphone Limited had 74.36 million in April. It had 75.33 million in March.
Robi had 48.84 million users in April while it had 49.71 million in March.
Banglalink Digital Communications Limited had 34.876 million users in April. It had 35.37 million in March.
On the other hand, Teletalk Bangladesh Limited had 4.84-million subscribers while it had 4.91 million in March.
Besides, the number of total internet users reached 101.18 million at the end of April from 103.25 million at the end of March.
Of them, 93.101 million are internet users, 0.002 million WiMAX users and 8.084 million ISP (internet service provider) and PSTN (public switched telephone network) users.
Subscriber means the biometric-verified subscription having any activity at least once in the preceding 90 days, according to the BTRC.
Internet subscriber means subscription that has accessed internet at least once in the past 90 days.
The number of fixed internet subscriptions (ISP and PSTN) is updated until March 2020.
ISP and PSTN internet subscriber information is being updated on a quarterly basis and the next updated figure will be available after 2020, the BTRC said.
