Bangladeshi imo users made 26 billion calls in 2020

Instant messaging (IM) platform imo users in Bangladeshi exchanged 96.8 billion messages and made 26 billion audio and video calls in 2020, an increase of 8.2% and 7.8% respectively as compared to the previous year.

On average, every Bangladeshi communicated 753 times on imo in 2020, according to the 2020 year-end report released by the IM platform on Sunday.

Back in May 2020, imo set up five exclusive hotlines for Bangladesh's ICT Division to communicate with expats about Covid-19, aiming to improve cohesion in the fight against the pandemic on an international level.

31% of total messages and 58% of total calls made by Bangladeshis last year using the platform were international. Saudi Arabia, Oman, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar were the top 5 countries that Bangladeshi users had the most contact with, it added.

"We are proud to see that an unprecedented number of Bangladeshi people, both at home and abroad, have used imo to connect and share precious moments with their loved ones during the past difficult year," said Chris Hsu, Vice President of imo.

"We look forward to a fresh start in 2021, and imo will continue to bring innovative, localized and safer products and services to all users in Bangladesh," he added.

With its industry-leading and localized communication technology, imo helped Bangladeshi users save up to 150 million gigabytes of data in video and audio calls throughout last year, with a total worth of US$144 million.

2020 witnessed the sudden and unprecedented impact of Covid-19 which disrupted life, work and connectivity across the world including Bangladesh. Throughout this pandemic, IM apps such as imo played an important role in keeping people connected, informed, entertained and positive.

During the year, 130 million group calls were made and 128 million virtual party rooms were created through Play Together, one of the group interactions features that imo introduced in 2020.