Bangladesh’s telecommunications industry saw a slight decrease in total mobile subscribers by the end of 2025, primarily driven by new regulatory limits on personal SIM card ownership. Data reveals that total connections across the nation’s four major operators fell to 18.59 crore in December 2025, compared to 18.76 crore during the same period the previous year. This year-on-year decline of 17 lakh users follows a government mandate in June 2025 that lowered the individual SIM ownership cap from 15 to 10 to bolster national security and curb the criminal misuse of mobile connections.
The impact of the new regulations varied across the country’s service providers. Grameenphone maintained its market lead despite a minor dip to 8.42 crore subscribers, while Banglalink experienced a more significant loss of 23 lakh users, bringing its total to 3.75 crore. Conversely, Robi Axiata emerged as the only private operator to post growth, adding 7 lakh users to reach a total of 5.74 crore. State-owned Teletalk also saw a modest increase, ending the year with 68 lakh subscribers and a 3.66 percent market share. Industry leaders attributed the shifts to both the mandatory deregistration of excess SIMs and intensifying competition regarding network quality and service reliability.
