Bangladesh to end importing phone soon

People involved with the mobile phone sector feel Bangladesh will no longer need to import handsets as a dozen of local factories are scaling up assembly operations.

They say the factories are fully capable to meet the local smartphone demand, while they can supply almost 80 percent of the feature phones.

p officials of the plants, including that of Korean giant Samsung Electronics, say the sector will be able to fully meet the local demand this year.

The production of mobile phone handsets in Bangladesh has caused the grey market of illegal and fake mobile to shrink.

Asmany as 33 million mobile handsets were made in Bangladesh over the past one and a half years, including 18.8 million in last six months, said Shyam Sunder Sikder, the chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission or BTRC.

Bangladesh imported 16.3 million mobiles in last one and a half years with only 1.8 million of them imported in the last six months.

Before domestic production began in 2017, Bangladesh needed to meet the local consumption through 100% import of handsets. Now the plants import small parts and assemble the handsets.

The handset market in Bangladesh is worth over Tk 100 billion or roughly $1.2 billion.