More households use refrigerators, ACs as income grows

An increasing number of households in Bangladesh own smartphones and home appliances such as refrigerators, ovens, washing machines, and air conditioners thanks to domestic assembly of such appliances and steady growth of the economy that drove people's purchasing capacity.

Not only that, more families now have computers and motorcycles than they did in 2021, according to key findings of the Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics (BSVS) 2023, released by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) yesterday.

Ownership of all these items increased in three years.

Take the case of smartphones. Today, 74.5 percent of families have such devices, but in 2021, 65.91 percent of families had a smartphone.

Similarly, the number of households with either refrigerators, ovens or washing machines grew by more than 8 percentage points to 53.4 percent in 2023 compared to 2021.

Ownership of computers or laptops also increased in the same timeframe.

In the case of air conditioners, 2.28 percent of households now have the machine compared to 1.6 percent in 2021.

And household ownership of motorcycles, which are widely visible in urban and rural areas, rose to 11.11 percent in 2023 from 10.12 percent, the BBS data showed.

The ownership of such assets is growing because they are usually kept in houses until they become unusable.

"The purchasing capacity of people has increased. These appliances are also status symbols. People buy such goods when they become solvent as it enhances their social status," said Alamgir Hossen, project director for the BSVS 2023 at the BBS.

Here, the steady growth of Bangladesh's economy -- around 6 percent annually -- for the last two decades, and subsequent increases in overall buying capacity, played a big role. Another factor is the increasing domestic assembly of these items by local companies.

Nurul Afser, deputy managing director of Electromart Ltd, said the use of refrigerators in rural areas of Bangladesh had increased due to several reasons.

"Firstly, electricity has become available in rural areas. Secondly, price of refrigerators has come within the reach of the common people due to the local production of electronic products. Thirdly, manufacturers have moved to rural areas through dealers," he said.

"Refrigerators are not luxury products at all. Rather they have become necessary in urban and rural areas as people want to preserve perishable products like fish and meat."

Companies are also offering the scope to purchase products with equal monthly instalments, which encourage consumers, he said.

According to the findings, 49.49 percent of households today have televisions, whereas 53.09 percent of families had the device in 2021.

Ritesh Ranjan, head of business at Transcom Digital, said the use of refrigerators in households increased last year, but not the use of televisions.

"This growth is very nominal," he said. "The increase in the use of electronics in households is an impact of urbanisation and changing lifestyles."

This growth would have been faster if there was normalcy in the economy, he added.

Binayak Sen, director general of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), said increased ownership of these items indicated an improvement in living standards.

"Consumerism has increased. These appliances have now also become status goods. We see the development of the home market. Our local industries have developed and they are assembling home appliances getting tariff protection."

However, Sen said high tariff protection is problematic as companies will not be interested to export and compete in the global market if they get such protection. The tariff protection should be phased out gradually to make local industries competitive, he said.