'Major milestone', says President as bdnews24.com launches first Bangla SMS news service with Robi

In another first, bdnews24.com has formally launched Bangla SMS news service in partnership with mobile operator Robi, a move that President Md Abdul Hamid applauded calling it a “major milestone”.

The president met top editors and executives from bdnews24.com and Robi at the Bangabhaban on Wednesday, hours after they formalised their partnership at a symbolic ceremony on Wednesday to run the service, already subscribed to by 50,000 people in its first days.

“I congratulate both bdnews24.com and Robi on this unique achievement,” the president said.

“This is really a great achievement. I am delighted to know so many people have already registered,” he told the bdnews24.com-led team.

The president also greeted the subscribers in a Bangla SMS released during the meeting.

He clicked to send the message that read: “Best wishes to you all from President Md Abdul Hamid.”

The president was ecstatic about the fact that Bangla script was being used now to write messages on mobile telephones.

Later, his Press Secretary Md Joynal Abedin said the President highly praised the initiative. “News updates in Bangla from bdnews24.com will help the subscribers stay informed of what’s happening in Bangladesh and around the world,” the Press Secretary quoted the head of state as saying.

BTRC Vice-Chairman retired brigadier general Md Ahsan Habib Khan was present.

Robi Managing Director and CEO Supun Weerasinghe, Chief Corporate and People Officer Matiul Islam Nowshad, Company Secretary and Regulatory Affairs Executive Vice President Mohammed Shahedul Alam and General Manager Faisal Ahmed attended the Bangabhaban meeting.

Speaking about the launch of the groundbreaking initiative, bdnews24.com’s Editor-in-Chief Toufique Imrose Khalidi said, “Bangla SMS has been tried and tested with other operators before, but we failed to sustain the service catering to hundreds of thousand subscribers.

Officials of bdnews24.com and Robi Axiata pose after launch of the world’s first SMS-based Breaking News service in Bangla on Wednesday at the mobile operator’s Gulshan headquarters.

“This time, we have made it,” added Khalidi “with wonderful support from Robi.”

“We would like to take Bangla-language computing to new heights and introduce more services with Bangla script such as the Bangla typing app launched two years ago,” the chief editor said.

Earlier, after officially launching the service at Robi’s Gulshan headquarters, Khalidi said: “This has been a personal dream for me for a long time. Naturally, I am very excited.”

For the Bangla-speaking people around the world, bdnews24.com offers for free Sellipi, a Bangla typing application developed by a Malaysian partner.

The app is rated by its tens of thousands of users as one of the finest available on the mobile application market.

Robi is the second largest mobile operator in Bangladesh by revenue. It is a subsidiary of Malaysia-based Axiata Group, one of the leading telecom companies in Asia. Japan’s NTT DOCOMO owns a substantial stake.

It provides services through 8,119 sites, including 2,450 3.5G sites.

A set of books from bdnews24 Publishing Limited was presented to President Md Abdul Hamid for the Bangabhaban library during the meeting on Wednesday. The photo shows Chief Editor Toufique Imrose Khalidi giving him the popular title ‘Dhormoniropekshota’ (secularism), an anthology of 1972 papers by the then leading thinkers, to the president.

bdnews24.com is Bangladesh’s largest news publisher by reach and volume of content in two languages. It boasts more than 5 million followers on Facebook.

Its authenticity and delivery of news as it happens have earned Bangladesh's first internet-only newspaper millions of dedicated followers worldwide.

According to Google Analytics that tracks and reports website traffic, bdnews24.com reached a record 7.4 million unique visitors in Dec 2013 ahead of the Jan 5 general election.

And between March and July this year, the number shot to nine million when cricketing superpowers India and Pakistan played Bangladesh.

A spokesperson for bdnews24.com said unique readership on the Internet is compared with the circulation of print newspapers. On that count, bdnews24.com’s readership is several times the circulation all newspapers together have in Bangladesh.