A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, or hand phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone service area. The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator, which provides access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephone services use a cellular network architecture and, therefore, mobile telephones are called cellular telephones or cell phones in North America. In addition to telephony, digital mobile phones (2G) support a variety of other services, such as text messaging, MMS, email, Internet access, short-range wireless communications (infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, video games and digital photography. Mobile phones offering only those capabilities are known as feature phones; mobile phones which offer greatly advanced computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones.

In telecom industry to for serving low-income consumer in rural and urban areas there is lot of hype in the mobile telecommunications to make their market. There are more than 2.1 billion consumers at the very ‘base of the economic pyramid’, with per capita incomes of less than $1,500. Among all those more than one million which is equivalent to one sixth of world population have $1 income as per capital income, and very few of these have their mobile phones at present. The penetration of the success of the mobile networks to low-income customers has been patchy at the best. World bank is expecting or estimating that the world’s most population in particular 75 % are within the coverage of the mobile networks. Most of the mobile network are focusing on gaining the customers from middle class and above middle class. In the growing regions like Asia the mobile penetration in top the line of the population is still less than 20% where as in the un grown regions like Africa the mobile penetration rate is still less than 10%. In most cases, MNOs have served the poorest consumers through shared-use models such as Grameenphone’s Village phone concept in Bangladesh, due to the commonly held belief that reaching these consumers is difficult due to two key challenges – affordability and availability. The smartphone industry, creating phones with more advanced computing capabilities and connectivity than regular mobile phones, has been part of the mobile phone industry since late 90s, gaining mainstream popularity with the introduction of Apple’s iPhone in 2007. The iPhone revolutionized the smartphone industry by offering customer friendly features such as a touch screen interface and a virtual keyboard. The first smartphone running on Android was introduced to the consumer market in late 2008.

In 2019, the number of smartphones sold to consumers stood at around 1.52 billion units, a significant increase from the 680 million units sold in 2012. This means that over 19 percent of the world’s total population owned a smart device in 2019, a figure that is expected to increase to 37 percent by 2021.

The leading smartphone vendors today are Samsung, Apple, and Huawei. Taken together the three technology companies account for about half of all smartphone shipments worldwide. All three shipped at least 200 million smartphones in 2018, with Samsung leading the way with more than 290 million smartphone unit shipments. Feature phones are the preferred mobile phone in many markets globally, despite the tremendous adoption of smartphones. An important factor is affordability. The bottom of the pyramid population across the world simply cannot afford a smartphone.

There are more than three billion people across the world who live on an income of less than US$2.50 per day. This segment can neither afford a smartphone nor the data services demanded by the growing advancement in smartphone use-cases. Thus, a feature phone, coupled with basic mobile services has been the go-to offering for these users to communicate and connect. Most of these users are prevalent across Africa, parts of Asia and Latin America.

According to research, markets in Africa, especially Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania have the highest potential for feature phones. In terms of the total addressable market opportunity, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan, and South Africa remain the key markets.

Mobile Phone Market Potential in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has seen a rapid growth in mobile handset market, especially in smartphone segment, since 2013, with local brands dominating the market, while the international ones are striving to gain momentum with their aggressive marketing strategies. At present, the country is a BDT 8,500-core market of some three crore mobile handsets comprised of local and international brands vying with each other. Of the total mobile phones, only 30% are smartphones and the rest are basic phones, which are priced below BDT 2,000. Since 2008, local mobile handset brands had the lion’s share of the market with its lost-cost and mid-range basic products. During the period between 2008 and 2012, international brands were losing their business to local brands, Symphony and Walton, which gathered momentum with their over 50% market share. The local brands served customers with low-cost smartphones priced at between BDT 3,000 and BDT 6,000.

Due to huge market potential and sizeable domestic market, MH Technology Ltd (MHT) has taken initiative to establish a new mobile phone assembling project at 17/1, Sataish Road, West Gazipur, Tongi, Gazipur Sadar, Gazipur-1230. Due to sizeable domestic market in recent years, the project will be technically feasible, financially rewarding and economically & commercially viable.

MH Khan Industries Limited is going to set up a Mobile Assembling and Manufacturing unit where they will assemble and manufacture different models of Feature phones and Smart Phones.

Features Phone models include MH 55 (Winmax), MH 70 (Winmax), MH 80 (Winmax), V70 (Sonovo) and V 55 (Sonovo). Smart Phone models include X Pro (Winmax), RX9 (Sonovo), C24 (Oukitel) and 10X Lite (Honor).

Total daily attainable assembling and manufacturing capacity will be 10,000 pcs Feature Phones and 4,300 pcs Smart Phones per day. The total daily assembling and manufacturing capacity will be 14,300 pcs.

The assembling and manufacturing matrix for feature phones will be 20% MH 55 (Winmax), 20% MH 70 (Winmax), 20% MH 80 (Winmax), 20% V70 (Sonovo) and 20% V 55 (Sonovo) of total feature phones. The assembling and manufacturing matrix for smart phones will be 27.91% X Pro (Winmax), 27.91% RX9 (Sonovo), 23.26% C24 (Oukitel) and 20.93% 10X Lite (Honor) of total smart phones. The attainable sales will be Daily BDT 64.37 mln, Monthly BDT 1,609.20 mln and Yearly BDT 19,310.40 mln.