The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) reports that during the previous three years, the proportion of adults over the age of 15 who use mobile phones has decreased in the nation, and nearly half of the population does not have access to the internet.The BBS released a study on March 26th titled “Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics-2023,” which provided this image.
Those over 15 who use a mobile phone decreased to 74.2 percent in 2023 from 74% in 2020, while those over 5 saw an increase of 0.2% during the same time period.In urban regions, 42% of people and 71% of persons in rural areas, respectively, have access to mobile phones. Sixty-three percent of women, up from sixty-three percent in 2020, and over eighty-six percent of men, up from eighty-seven percent three years earlier, had access to mobile phones in 2023.According to data, during the coronavirus pandemic in 2021, the number of mobile phone users decreased, but in 2022 and 2023, it marginally increased.
In 2020, 43 percent of people, 43.7 percent in 2021, and 45.5% in 2022 were internet users over the age of 15, according to the BBS research. In the same year, 58% of males and 42% of women in the nation had online access.Although over 62% of individuals in urban regions and over 46% of people in rural areas use the internet, only slightly over 38% of women have access to it.BM Despite the significant government investment in the information, communication, and technology (ICT) sector, Mainul Hossain, a professor at the University of Dhaka’s Institute of Information Technology, told Prothom Alo that nothing had changed at the foundation.
He further said the number of mobile phone users declined instead of rising. On the other hand, the government has undertaken many projects to reach internet connectivity in remote areas. Such a scenario is not acceptable after these investments.
There is a wide gap between women and men, as well as in urban and rural areas, he said adding that connectivity was one of the pillars of building Digital Bangladesh, but half of the population remains out of internet coverage.
