NAYPYITAW, 07 November 2021, (TON): Activist group Justice for Myanmar (JFM) announced “telecommunications provider Mytel lost nearly US$25m in profits and millions of customers in the three months that followed the February 1 coup.”

The losses were due to boycotts by both users and shops due to the company’s ties to the junta; Mytel is jointly owned by the Myanmar military and Viettel, under Vietnam’s defence ministry.

Boycotts launched after the coup by the public called for Mytel sim cards to be destroyed, a refusal to accept calls from those using Mytel mobile numbers, and a blacklisting of Mytel products by shops. Signboards and banners advertising Mytel were also removed and destroyed.

The company lost staff to mass resignations, too, according to JFM. Mytel’s sales representatives dropped by around 30 percent in six months from more than 54,400 in January to around 38,190 in July.

Citing leaked data, JFM said that some 80 percent of Mytel’s sales came from private mobile phone shops nationwide.

A mobile phone shop owner from Mawlamyaine in Mon State told Myanmar Now that they destroyed 700,000 kyat (nearly $390) worth of Mytel top-up cards and sim cards in the days immediately after the coup.

The shop owner said “we never used Mytel but we had to sell their products because we’re a phone shop,” the shop owner said.

“We’re not going to sell them again. We don’t even accept phone calls from Mytel numbers.”