Grameenphone gets 70 million subscribers

Bangladesh’s leading mobile telecom operator by subscription Grameenphone now boasts 70 million subscribers.

“Twenty-two years ago, when we first started working in Bangladesh our dreams were big but, perhaps never this big,” Grameenphone CEO Michael Foley said in a message published on Facebook on Monday in celebration of the company’s achievement.

“GP has become, over the last two decades a fundamental and inseparable part of the fabric of society. We have brought telecoms to tens of millions of people who otherwise would not have had access to it, and, by doing so have given them access to education, information, healthcare, security, and so much more,” he wrote.

Foley says he has always seen the work of Telenor, which owns GP, in South Asia “as the work of a sustainable development agency”.

Photo taken from Grameenphone's Facebook page

“We are profitable therefore sustainable and we also return a big portion of our earning back to the society that we serve,” he said.

The 70 million subscribers represent almost twice the population of his home country Canada, and 13 times the population of the company’s parent country, Norway, he noted.

“The scale is in fact, quite staggering.” Every day, 370,000 retailers around the country support GP customers, 6,000 retail executives or more visit almost every one of GP’s retail points every day, according to the firm’s CEO.

“A team of roughly 2,400 permanent employees execute daily the miracle of sustainably managing a mobile network in a tough environment, with high taxes and relatively low revenue per customer,” he said.

“I invite all our stakeholders (regulators, shareholders, board members, suppliers, partners and employees) to take a bow, over the last 22 years you've made an indelible mark on Bangladesh.”

“But above all, we need to thank our customers who have continued to support our business and our efforts to build a better nation, you are at the centre of all the decisions that we make. - We continue to be humbled by your trust,” CEO Foley added.