Overview on grameenphone

Overview On Grameenphone

Grameenphone is a GSM-based cellular operator in Bangladesh. Grameenphone started operations on March 26, 1997. It is partly owned by Telenor (62%) and Grameen Telecom (38%).

Grameenphone is the largest mobile phone company in Bangladesh with 20.84 million customers as of August, 2008. It is also one the fastest growing cellular telephone networks in Bangladesh.

At the end of 2005, it had about 3500 base stations around the country with plans to add about 500 in the following six months. Grameenphone's stated goal is to provide cost-effective and quality cellular services in Bangladesh.

On the 16th of November, 2006 GP formally changed its logo to match its parent company Telenor's logo. According to GP the new logo symbolizes trust, reliability, quality and constant progress.

The name Grameenphone was kept as part of the new identity because the name Grameenphone carries with it all of the heritage, success and values of the companies past, added the then CEO of Grameenphone Erik Aas. and the present CEO of Gramenphon is Heszedal and chif marketing officer is Rubaba doula.

History The idea of providing wider mobile phone access to rural areas was originally conceived by Iqbal Quadir, who is currently the founder and director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT. He was inspired by the Grameen Bank microcredit model and envisioned a business model where a cell phone can serve as a source of income. After leaving his job as an investment banker in the United States, Quadir traveled back to Bangladesh, after meeting and successfully raising money from New York based investor and philanthropist Joshua Mailman, and worked for three years gaining support from various organizations including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank and the Norwegian telephone company, Telenor. He was finally successful in forming a consortium with Telenor and Grameen Bank to establish Grameenphone. Quadir remained a shareholder of Grameenphone until 2004.

Grameenphone received a license for cellular phone operation in Bangladesh from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications on November 28, 1996. Grameenphone started operations on March 26, 1997, the Independence Day in Bangladesh.

Grameenphone originally offered a mobile-to-mobile connectivity (widely known as GP-GP connection), which created a lot of enthusiasm among the users. It became the first operator to reach the million subscriber milestone as well as ten million subscriber milestone in Bangladesh.

Numbering scheme Grameenphone uses the following numbering scheme for its subscribers: +880 17 nnnnnnnn 880 is the ISD code for Bangladesh and is needed only in case of dialing from outside Bangladesh (otherwise, it may be substituted by a 0, making the prefix 017). 17 is the prefix for Grameenphone as allocated by the government of Bangladesh. The eight-digit number nnnnnnnn is the subscriber number.

Products offered Grameenphone offers subscription in two categories, Prepaid Subscription and Postpaid Subscription.

Prepaid subscriptions are sub-divided into three plans: • • •

smile (mobile to mobile connectivity within Bangladesh), smile PSTN (nationwide and international mobile and land line connectivity) djuice (a youth based mobile to mobile connectivity within Bangladesh).

Postpaid plan: •

xplore (nationwide and international mobile and landline connectivity)

Grameenphone also offers different value-added services including SMS, MMS, Welcome Tunes (Ringback Tones), Voice SMS, SMS Push-Pull Service, Voice Mail Service (VMS), and Fax and Data among others. Grameenphone was the first mobile operator in Bangladesh to offer EDGE services to its subscribers.

But the cost of making a call is unnecessarily higher than any other operator. They are telling they got the best, widest network. But in reality another operator Aktel has the widest coverage. Specially, in Chittagong division. Overall, GP is not a good and honest company.

Other activities Village phone With the help of Grameenphone, Grameen Telecom operates the national Village Phone programme, alongside its own parent Grameen Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), acting as the sole provider of telecommunications services to a number of rural areas. Most Village Phone participants are women living in remote areas. Village Phone works as an owner-operated GSM payphone whereby a borrower takes a BDT 12,000 (USD 200) loan from Grameen Bank to subscribe to GP (Grameenphone) and is then trained on how to operate it and how to charge others to use it at a profit. As in September 2006, there are more than 255,000 Village Phones in operation in 55,000 villages around Bangladesh. This program has been replicated also in some other countries including in Uganda and Rwanda in Africa.

Community Information Centers Community Information Center (CIC) or GPCIC is aimed at providing internet access and other communications services to rural areas. In February 2006, 26 CICs were established across the country as a pilot project. In this project, Grameenphone provides GSM/EDGE/GPRS infrastructure

and technical support and other partners Grameen Telecom Corporation and Society for Economic and Basic Advancement (SEBA), are involved in selecting and training entrepreneurs to run the village centers. The computers in these centers in the pilot project are used by an average of 30 people a day, who pay a small fee to access email or Web pages. These CICs are used for a wide variety of business and personal purposes, from accessing health and agricultural information to using government services to video conferencing with relatives overseas. Grameenphone also trains the entrepreneurs so that they can give people advice on how to set up an e-mail account and best make use of the Internet.

CIC project is giving up to 20 million people the chance to use the Internet and e-mail for the first time. Following a successful pilot project, Grameenphone is going to set up approximately 560 centers in communities throughout Bangladesh by the end of 2006. The centers will be located in each Upazila (sub-district) of Bangladesh. As a result, up to 15 villages containing up to 40,000 people will be within reach of each CIC. In this information center, there will be personal computers connected to Grameenphone's existing GSM mobile network, which has been upgraded with EDGE technology to offer data transfer speeds of up to 16 kilobytes per second.

Grameenphone Centers

A gpc at Gulshan, Dhaka.

A grameenphone center (GPC) serves as a "one stop solution" for customers, with all telecommunications products and services, under a single roof. A grameenphone center also sells phones from vendors like Nokia, Samsung, Motorola,Sagem and Benq. EDGE/GPRS modems and accessories such chargers and headphones are also sold at GPCs. As of September, 2007, there are 76 GPCs and they are strategically located at all major locations of the country is operated by Grameenphone. As of late most of the newly opened gpc's are franchised.

Most of these franchised outlets are in non-metropolitan areas.

The GPCs also provide the flexiload service without charging extra for small denominations unlike many retailers in the country. Thus making the gpc's and ideal place for many for such a service.

Every once a while, the GPCs tie up with handset manufactures and start a nationwide marketing scheme by selling the specific vendors products at a price lower than the market's or in bundle with a grameenphone connection loaded with free minutes.

Revenue In business, revenue or revenues is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. Some companies also receive revenue from interest, dividends or royalties paid to them by other companies. Revenue may refer to

business income in general, or it may refer to the amount, in a monetary unit, received during a period of time, as in "Last year, Company X had revenue of $32 million."

In many countries, including the UK, revenue is referred to as turnover.

Profits or net income generally imply total revenue minus total expenses in a given period. In accounting and financial analysis, revenue is often referred to as the "top line" due to its position on the income statement at the very top. This is to be contrasted with the "bottom line" which denotes net income Investments such as stock shares in companies. For government, revenue includes gross proceeds from income taxes on companies and individuals, excise duties, customs duties, other taxes, sales of goods and services, dividends and interest.

In general usage, revenue is income received by an organization in the form of cash or cash equivalents. Sales revenue or revenues is income received from selling goods or services over a period of time. Tax revenue is income that a government receives from taxpayers.

In more formal usage, revenue is a calculation or estimation of periodic income based on a particular standard accounting practice or the rules established by a government or government agency. Two common accounting methods, cash basis accounting and accrual basis accounting, do not use the same process for measuring revenue. Corporations that offer shares for sale to the public are usually required by law to report revenue based on generally accepted accounting principles or International Financial Reporting Standards.

In a double-entry bookkeeping system, revenue accounts are general ledger accounts that are summarized periodically under the heading Revenue or Revenues on an income statement. Revenue account names describe the type of revenue, such as "Repair service revenue", "Rent revenue earned" or "Sales".

Business revenue Business revenue is income from activities that are ordinary for a particular corporation, company, partnership, or sole-proprietorship. For some businesses, such as manufacturing and/or grocery, most revenue is from the sale of goods. Service businesses such as law firms and barber shops receive most of their revenue from rendering services. Lending businesses such as car rentals and banks receive most of their revenue from fees and interest generated by lending assets to other organizations or individuals.

Revenues from a business's primary activities are reported as sales, sales revenue or net sales. This excludes product returns and discounts for early payment of invoices. Most businesses also have revenue that is incidental to the business's primary activities, such as interest earned on deposits in a demand account. This is included in revenue but not included in net sales. Sales revenue does not include sales tax collected by the business.

Other revenue (a.k.a. non-operating revenue) is revenue from peripheral (non-core) operations. For example, a company that manufactures and sells automobiles would record the revenue from the sale of an automobile as "regular" revenue. If that same company also rented a portion of one of its buildings, it would record that revenue as “other revenue� and disclose it separately on its income statement to show that it is from something other than its core operations.

A public company reports its total annual revenues based on its fiscal year. Public companies also report quarterly revenues.

Internally, companies break revenue down by operating segment, geographic region, and product line.

Financial analysis Revenue is a crucial part of financial analysis. A company’s performance is measured to the extent to which its asset inflows (revenues) compare with its asset outflows (expenses). Net Income is the result of this equation, but revenue typically enjoys equal attention during a standard earnings call. If a company displays solid “top-line growth,” analysts could view the period’s performance as positive even if earnings growth, or “bottom-line growth” is stagnant. Conversely, high income growth would be tainted if a company failed to produce significant revenue growth. Consistent revenue growth, as well as income growth, is considered essential for a company's publicly traded stock to be attractive to investors Revenue is used as an indication of earnings quality. There are several financial ratios attached to it, the most important being gross margin and profit margin. Also, companies use revenue to determine bad debt expense using the income statement method.

Price / Sales is sometimes used as a substitute for a Price to earnings ratio when earnings are negative and the P/E is meaningless. Though a company may have negative earnings, it almost always has positive revenue.

Gross Margin is a calculation of revenue less cost of goods sold, and is used to determine how well sales cover direct variable costs relating to the production of goods.

Net income / sales, or profit margin, is calculated by investors to determine how efficiently a company turns revenues into profits.

Government revenue Government revenue includes all amounts of money received from sources outside the government entity. Large governments usually have an agency or department responsible for collecting government revenue from companies and individuals.

Government revenue may also include Reserve Bank currency which is printed.This is recorded as an advance to the retail bank together with a corresponding currency in circulation expense entry.The income derives from the Official Cash rate payable by the retail banks for instruments such as 90 day bills.There is a question as to whether using generic business based accounting standards can give a fair and accurate picture of government accounts in that with a monetary policy statement to the reserve bank directing a positive inflation rate the expense provision for the return of currency to the reserve bank is largely symbolic in that to totally cancel the currency in circulation provision all currency would have to be returned to the reserve bank and cancelled.

Net income Net income is equal to the income that a firm has after subtracting costs and expenses from the total revenue. Net income can be distributed among holders of common stock as a dividend or held by the firm as retained earnings. Net income is an accounting term. In some countries (such as the UK) profit is the usual term. [citation needed] Often, the term income is substituted for net income, yet this is not preferred due to the possible ambiguity.

The items deducted will typically include tax expense, financing expense (interest expense), and minority interest. Likewise, preferred stock dividends will be subtracted too, though they are not an expense. For a merchandising company, subtracted costs may be the cost of goods sold, sales

discounts, and sales returns and allowances. For a product company advertising, manufacturing, and design and development costs are included.

Net income is informally called the bottom line because it is typically found on the last line of a company's income statement. A related term is top line, meaning revenue, which forms the first line of the account statement.

An equation for net income in merchandising: Net income or net loss = Revenue – Cost of goods sold – Sales discounts – Sales returns and allowances – Expenses – Minority interest – Preferred stock dividends Social Well fare: Grameenphone organizes Free Eye Camp in Kurigram Grameenphone Ltd., jointly with Sightsavers International, organized a day-long Free Eye-care Camp at the Diabetic Hospital, Kurigram on October 29, 2007. Ulipur Mariam Eye Hopital of Kurigram also provided their support during this event. This is the fifth Free Eye Camp organized jointly by Grameenphone and Sightsavers International. Grameenphone entered into a partnership with Sightsavers International to provide free eye-care support in rural Bangladesh earlier this year. The four previous eye camps were held in Cox's Bazaar, Bagerhat, Natore and Dhaka respectively.

So far more than 5000 patients have received basic prescription and more than 600 patients have gone through Intra Ocular Lens (IOL) surgery or cataract surgery.

In this event more than 2000 patients arrived for free eye-care at the camp. All patients were given routine examinations and prescriptions for refractive error were given to those who required it. Three hundred (300) patients were referred for cataract surgery.

The Deputy Commissioner of Kurigram District, Mr. A.R Mollah, and Superintendent of Police Kurigram Circle, Choudhury Manzur Kabir, were present on the occasion as Chief Guest and Special Guest respectively. Mr. Emon Kalyan Dutta, Head of Regions, Rajshahi, and Dr. Arkanul Islam, Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility of Grameenphone, and representatives of Sightsavers International and Marium Eye Hospital were also present.Grameenphone also arranged blood donation drive in Rajshahi and Bogra for Thalassaemia patients. Grameenphone employees, business partners and corporate clients enthusiastically participated in these events. This was the 4th blood donation program organized by Grameenphone for Bangladesh Thalassaemia Hospital (BTH). Earlier blood donation drives were arranged in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet.

Earlier this year Grameenphone signed an agreement with BTH to work together to collect blood for Thalassaemia patients. Thalassaemia is a blood-related, genetic disorder passed on to children from parents who have the Thalassaemia trait. The disease has no cure and patients require blood transfusion at regular intervals in conjunction with other medical support services to survive.

Ensuring access to primary health care is one of Grameenphone's key focus areas for social intervention. Grameenphone is also involved in the countrywide Safe Motherhood and Infant Care project in partnership with USAID.