“Teletalk” a state-owned GSM, 3G,LTE mobile phone operator in Bangladesh that commenced its journey since 2004
after Grammenphone, Robi & Banglalink . The Managing Director of Teletalk Bangladesh Limited is Mr. Md. Shahab Uddin . On December 18,
2018, Teletalk finally launched 4G ( fourth-generation services ) commercially
in the capital, some 10 months behind the market’s remaining three private
wireless networks. Teletalk had first targeted to launch 4G services in May
& further postponed the decision in August as the preparations were not made properly. While the other three operators launched 4G services in February
2018 that assisted the operators to grab competitive advantage over Teletalk. Since
from the beginning, this operator is confronting various complexities to
accommodate the new challenges due to failure to obtain strategic decisions on
time. On May 10, 2009, since the company was facing huge trouble in competing
to 3 giant mobile operators, it decided to allocate 2000Cr as a development
fund to compete with the private sectors, because of the lack of the latest
technology support. Although it was conceived that the fund will be spent for
adding 55lakh additional customers, the outcome from this investment is still
unknown.
Experts have disclosed several reasonable reasons behind
the repeating failure of Teletalk. They urged that Teletalk is lagging behind
in terms of strong network coverage both in urban & rural areas, poor
customer care service, poor internet speed outside the urban areas & inefficient
management are the significant causes. Moreover, some experts stressed that
lack of investment fund in the business operation imperil the company to
compete with other operators. On the other hand, some believe that inefficiency
in the management of the allocated fund, insufficient marketing strategies
& failing to apprehend the need of the customer are the major reasons.
Besides, its monthly revenue per subscriber also fell to Tk 195 from Tk
340 in 5 years since 2012 though its yearly revenue rose to Tk 986 crore which
was Tk 673 crore in 2012, IMED said. Teletalk's revenue in fiscal 2016-17 fell
to 28 percent year-on-year to Tk 710 crore which was the lowest in three years.
The reasons behind teletalk's failureThe reasons behind teletalk's failure
Another recent publication that
exposes one other significant reason for customer dissatisfaction is no
compensation for call drop. While, according to The Daily Star, against 79.07
crore of call drop, Grameenphone compensated back only 6.23 crore minutes, Robi
compensated 7.29 crore minutes against 74.68 crore call drops & Banglalink
compensated 1.86 crore minutes against 22.04 crore call drops. However, Teletalk had 5.46 crore call drops
but the operator gave nothing.
According to BRTC, Teletalk has 3.885 million subscribers,
where it had 4.553 million subscribers in 2018. In contrast, Grammenphone has
73.068 million subscribers, Banglalink has 33.690 million subscribers &
Robi has 46.900 million subscribers.
Recently the government has
planned to take 1.2 billion as loan from a Korean company LG U+ for expanding
teletalk’s network coverage and making the network 5G compatible to provide
their customers a better experience than before. Earlier in 2018, it had
decided to inject tk 5554 crore where tk 987 crore considered as own fund for
the purpose of expansion of 2G,3G & 4G network, govt loan considered as 675
corer for the purpose of expanding & upgrading 2G & 3G towers, sought
loan from the government 3282.15 crore for establishing 4000 3G & 4G
towers, Indian credit considered as 425.52 crore for establishing solar power
run towers, social obligation fund was 184.57 crore for expanding network in
haor areas & sought 1.2 billion loan from Korean firm for expansion of core
network.
However, it is still uncertain
whether this large investment can change the current scenario of Teletalk.If there is a dearth of proper
strategic planning, effective management of fund & effective marketing
strategies, the operator will further encounter a new challenge in the market.
Written By: Aminul Islam
