MyAdhan Blog

Link: Bangladesh: Grameenphone zooms in on rural areas

Grameenphone, the country’s leading mobile phone operator, eyes increased number of customers in rural areas, as the company believes its future growth lies in rural areas. “Definitely, there is a big market in the rural area. So, we are focusing on it,” Anders Jensen, chief executive officer of Grameenphone, said yesterday. He said in the light of livelihood of rural people GP is planning cost effective mobile services for them. As part of the company’s rural telecommunication campaign, the CEO and other high officials were visiting Boro Koyer village in Gazipur. Among others, Rubaba Dowla, director ( marketing), Md Shafiqul Islam, chief technical officer, and Syed Yamin Bakht, director ( public relations), accompanied the CEO. The primary purpose of the visit was to know about the village people’s communications needs, their experiences with mobile telephones, and how or what Grameenphone could do to meet their communications needs, Jensen said. “We learn first about the need of villagers then we will decide what we could offer,” he said. During the visit, Jensen also handed over four laptops to the students of Koyer High School. The Grameenphone CEO also handed over some handsets with connection free of cost to villagers including farmers during the tour. Jensen explained how farmers could find the current prices of their produces in the market through the Grameenphone CellBazaar service. The country’s total number of mobile phone subscribers reached 38.93 million by the end of March 2008. Grameenphone holds leading position in the market of six operators. Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) forecasts that the number will reach 50 million by the end of this year. Grameenphone is the market leader in mobile telecommunication sector with around 17.8 million subscribers, while Orascom Telecom Bangladesh, which operates Banglalink, is the second leader with around 8.3 million subscribers. Telecom Malaysia International Bangladesh, which operates AKTEL, and Warid Telecom International are the third and fourth market player with around 7.4 million and around 2.7 million subscribers respectively. Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Ltd, which operates Citycell, and the state-run Teletalk Bangladesh are the other two operators.