More than two million new mobile subscribers were added in Bangladesh in January taking the total number of users in the country to 36.4 million, according to the telecom watchdog Bangladesh Telecommuni-cation Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

The mobile phone company Grameenphone, majority owned by Norway's Telenor and also the market leader, raised its subscriber numbers to 16.88 million from 16.48 million at the end of December 2007. The Egyptian Orascom owned Banglalink increased its subscriber base to 7.45 million from its 7.08 million one month ago.

According to the figure, AKTEL, majority owned by Telekom Malaysia International, had the strongest growth with 7.28million users up from 6.40million in December 2007.

Warid Telecom International of the United Arab Emirates, which launched Bangladesh operations in May 2007, had 2.37 million users, CityCell 1.45 million and Teletalk 1 million.