Bangladesh is on its way to becoming self-reliant in smartphone production by the year end, with locally manufactured handsets now ruling the roost.

And by 2022, the country will add another product to its export basket: smartphone, according to estimates.

Most of the top brands have raised their game to meet the entire domestic demand from their plants in the country, while all the basic phones the country needs will be made locally within another one year, plant owners said.

Currently, nine foreign brands have their plants in the country while five of them have stopped importing devices as they are meeting their demand from local production.

Local manufacturers made about 54 lakh smart devices in their plants last year, while another 24 lakh were imported via the legal and grey channels, industry insiders said.


Along with 2.51 crore basic phones, total sales of handsets ran into 3.28 crore in 2019, according to local manufacturers and importers.

Local makers have been doing an excellent job for the last one and a half years, said Mohammad Mesbah Uddin, chief marketing officer of Fair Electronics that assembles Samsung devices in their plant in Narsingdi.

“Within the next few months some foreign brands will go into production in their local plants and Bangladesh will be self-dependent in smartphone production within this year,” said Mesbah, who is also the joint secretary of the Bangladesh Mobile Phone Importers Association (BMPIA).