Symphony becomes 2nd ‘Made in Bangladesh’ smartphone exporter

[Bilal9]

Symphony started to export smartphones to Nepal with a consignment of 15,000 smartphones on 26 October last year​

Photo: Mumit M/TBS

Photo: Mumit M/TBS

Symphony has become the second local brand to export "Made in Bangladesh" smartphones by sending its smartphones to Nepal.

"We started to export smartphones to Nepal with 15,000 smartphones on 26 October last year. The 2nd consignment is scheduled to be shipped on Sunday," said Zakaria Shahid, managing director of Edison Group, the parent company of Symphony, at the export inauguration held at Symphony Mobile Factory in Asulia of Savar.

"We are planning to grab handset markets of five more countries including Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Oman and Nigeria by 2022," he added.

Photo: Mumit M/TBS

Photo: Mumit M/TBS

Earlier, local tech conglomerate Walton started exporting its smartphones as the first local company to the USA on 1 March 2020 from its Gazipur plant.

Symphony started to manufacture smart and feature phones in 2018 at its Asulia factory which can manufacture 10.2 million devices annually with eight-stage quality controls.

At present, the brand has a demand of 7.2 million devices that include smartphones and feature phones.

"Currently, around 1,500 people are working at our mobile factory, but beneficiaries are many more," said Zakaria Shahid adding that the brand is looking forward to manufacturing two models of tab by this year.

Posts and Telecommunication Minister Mostafa Jabbar attended the inauguration programme as the chief guest. Before the inauguration event, the minister, along with Posts and Telecommunications Secretary Muhammad Khalilur Rahman and Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Chairman Shyam Sundar Sikder, visited Symphony mobile factory.

During his visit, he inspected different stages of the production line at the factory and exchanged his views with the employees.

Mostafa Jabbar said there was an employment gap for diplomat engineers but the gap has been filled by creating jobs for young vocational engineers.

"Now Nepal is importing mobile phones from us, but they will also manufacture mobile devices in their country soon. Then, our engineers will go there to help them," he added.

At present, the country has an annual demand of 35 million smartphone devices, of which 26.1 million are manufactured and assembled in local factories.

Among others, BTRC Director General (System and Services) Brig. Gen. Md. Nasim Parvez, Director General (Spectrum) Brig. Gen. Muhammad Moniruzzaman Jewel spoke at the event.