GP faces crisis over SIM sales

Grameenphone may not be able to sell new SIMs after a week or two as it has come close to exhausting the new connections it was allowed to sell by the regulator, said its CEO yesterday.

The company may face a major crisis unless the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission allows it to sell new SIM cards or resell the ones that have not been used in 15 months, said Chief Executive Officer Yasir Azman, who took charge of GP on Saturday.

“We will be able to sell Grameenphone connections in the next week or two only,” the 12th CEO of the largest mobile carrier told a press conference at his office yesterday.

Contacted, BTRC Chairman Jahurul Haque told The Daily Star that GP’s crisis would be solved if it gave the money it owed the government.

An audit of GP, ordered by the BTRC in 2015, concluded that the company owed the government Tk 12,579.95 crore. GP has since been refuting the audit claim. The dispute resulted in the regulator imposing multiple restrictions on the company’s business operations.

When GP launched its service in the country, its numbers began with 017. After the company exhausted the allocated 10 crore connections with the prefix, the BTRC in October 2018 gave it permission to sell 2 crore new connections that would begin with 013.

The company has almost sold out the connections it was allocated at the time, the CEO said yesterday.

GP wrote to the BTRC several times seeking permission to sell new SIMs and resell the unused ones, but the regulator had not responded, he added.

“There are 30 lakh unused connections, that can be sold again,” he said, adding that the company sold around 50,000 SIMs every day.

As of last December, the carrier had 7.64 crore active subscribers.