Bangladesh mobile shipment touches 4.6 million

The Bangladesh market recorded shipments of 4.6 million mobile handsets during CY Q4 (October-December) 2012.

In Q4, feature phones contributed to a major chunk of the pie, according to the CMR's Bangladesh mobile handsets market review. In 2012, an estimated 16.7 million units of mobile phones shipped in the Bangladesh market.

On a year-on-year comparison, the Bangladesh market saw a decline of 1.9 percent in unit shipments in CY 2012 vis-à-vis CY 2011. This decline was on account of instructions passed by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) to vendors to mandatorily integrate Bangla language in all mobile handsets. The decline was primarily noted in Q1 CY 2012.

Faisal Kawoosa, lead analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, "The results are an indication to the India Electronics and Telecommunications industry about the many export opportunities emerging in neighbouring markets. Since local brands are doing extremely well in Bangladesh, the market could be served with handsets manufactured out of India at competitive price points. This will not only create an additional market for Indian mobile handsets, but also broaden supply chain options for Bangladesh handset vendors."

He further added, "The launch of 3G services by public sector mobile telephony operator, Teletalk in 2012 and the auction of 3G spectrum to private mobile operators in June 2013 are expected to greatly improve the prospects for smartphones in the next two years."

Although the average Bangladesh mobile handset user is very price sensitive and usually goes for a mobile handset that costs between $15-25, with the increasing popularity of smartphones for accessing social media and data services by the youth segment, a rise in adoption of mid- and high-end mobile phones is expected.

Commenting on the results, Rajat Kharbanda, analyst, CMR SemiTronics Practice said, "Unlike common perceptions about the country, Bangladesh consumers have a taste and propensity to purchase high-end mobile phones. The ‘grey' market which used to account for as much as 80percent of total unit shipments until a few years ago has now fallen below 20 percent in the country."

Domestic players like Symphony Mobile, Smart Mobile and Maximus have done well for themselves and have given serious competition to Tier-1 international players like Nokia and Samsung. Symphony Mobile has emerged as the fastest growing mobile handsets vendor in the Bangladesh market.

An aggressive pricing strategy, contemporary features and styling, international quality build and a strong distribution network have contributed to make Symphony Mobile the preferred choice of Bangladesh customers added Rajat.