Robi

Robi Axiata Limited, DBA Robi (Bengali: রবি), is the second largest mobile network operator of Bangladesh. It is a joint venture between Axiata Group Berhad, of Malaysia, Bharti Airtel Limited, of India and NTT DoCoMo Inc., of Japan. Axiata holds 68.7% controlling stake in the entity, Bharti holds 25% while the remaining 6.3% is held by NTT DOCOMO of Japan. The first merger of Bangladesh’s telecom sector has come into effect with the beginning of the operation of Robi Axiata Limited as the merged company on November 16, 2016. Following the merger of Robi and airtel, the merged company is now known as Robi Axiata Limited. Having successfully completed the merger process, Robi has emerged as the second largest mobile phone operator in Bangladesh. The merged company has nationwide network coverage. Robi first commenced operation in 1997 as Telekom Malaysia International (Bangladesh) with the brand name ‘AKTEL’. In 2010 the company was re-branded to ‘Robi’ and the company changed its name to Robi Axiata Limited. As of November 2016, Robi Axiata uses two brands 'robi' and 'airtel' for its mobile services. ‘airtel’ is as an independent product brand of Robi Axiata. Robi Axiata has spectrum on GSM 900, 1800 and 2100 MHz bands.

Robi Axiata Limited Corporate Headquarters

Robi Axiata Limited started as a joint venture company between Telekom Malaysia and AK Khan and Company. It was formerly known as Telekom Malaysia International Bangladesh Limited which commenced operations in Bangladesh in 1997 with the brand name 'AKTEL'. In 2008, AK Khan and Company exited the business by selling its 30% stake to Japan's NTT Docomo for US$350 million.

On March 28, 2010, 'AKTEL' was rebranded as 'Robi' which means Sun in Bengali. It also took the logo of parent company Axiata Group which itself also went through a major rebranding in 2009. In 2013, after five years of presence, Docomo reduced its ownership to 8% for Axiata to take 92%.

On 28 January 2016, it was announced that Robi Axiata and Airtel Bangladesh will merge in Q1 2016. The combined entity will be called Robi, to serve about 40 million subscribers combined by both networks. Axiata Group will own 68.3% share, while Bharti Group will own 25%. The remaining shares will be owned by NTT Docomo. Finally Robi and Airtel were merged on November 16, 2016 and Robi set sail as the merged company.

Robi uses the following numbering scheme for its subscribers:

+880 18 N₁N₂N₃N₄N₅N₆N₇N₈

Where, +880 is the International subscriber dialing code for Bangladesh.

18 is the access code for Robi as assigned by the Government of Bangladesh. Omitting +88 will require to use 0 in place of it instead to represent local call, hence 018 is the general access code.

N₁N₂N₃N₄N₅N₆N₇N₈ is the subscriber number.

After merger with airtel, besides '018', Robi owns '016' number series too.

Robi offers an array of different packages. In addition to offering the fundamental pre-paid and post-paid mobile services, it offers a wide-range of value-added products and services such as, SMS, GPRS, EDGE, 3.5G HSPA+, international roaming, Mobile Banking, SMS banking, Caller Ring Back Tone, MMS, Voice Greetings, Welcome Tunes etc. Robi has got the widest international roaming coverage among all the operators in Bangladesh.

Robi has 32 Walk in Centers (WIC) and 1 SSD (Sales and Support Desk) at Dhaka International Airport. The customer care also can be found through many locals and cities in Bangladesh.