G&R, the first and largest online Ad Network of the country, has reported a new milestone, the company now serves one billion ads per month across more than 5 thousand Bangladeshi websites and apps.
The internet users in the Bangladesh is growing leaps and bounds affecting commerce to consumption to marketing to payment. According to data from Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, the number of internet users almost doubled in the last two years from 30.48 million in 2013 to 58.31 million in February 2016. Smartphone adoption is also growing rapidly in the country. According to G&R, 72% of internet users are browsing from their mobile device. A host of new companies including ecommerce and digital marketing is now growing at the back of this growing internet ecosystem.
“The phenomenal inventory growth of G&R clearly demonstrates that local publishers increasingly value the unique advertising technology solutions that we provide”, said Ayub Shahrear, G&R's Head of Partnerships. “We think that, especially in an extremely challenging macroeconomic digital environment, we are perfectly positioned to continue to meet this need for an ever expanding number of publishers”, he added.
G&R is one of earliest tech startups in Dhaka. As I wrote a couple months ago: "G&R started its journey back in 2009 but not exactly as what it is today. After trying and failing to build few internet businesses, G&R finally settled to become an online Ad Network back in 2010. It took the company almost six years to become what it is today. The company has grown rapidly during past few years. Genex Infosys Ltd acquired G&R in 2015 and the company became part of a larger empire. After the acquisition, the company named its Co-founder and former Product Chief Muhammad Nazimuddaula as CEO last year and announced its ambition to deliver better service and be better."
In April, G&R reported that it is doubling down in mobile and offering a new and better mobile product to serve the growing small screen users. Since then the company has been offering an array of options to serve effective ads on the small screen.
"It is hard to build an ad tech company and selling digital ads when you have Facebook and Google as the competitors," wrote Ruhul Kader of FS, "But G&R’s strategy to play local was, and remains so, an advantage since Google did not support ads on Bangla language websites when G&R started five years ago, which Google does not support these days as well," making G&R an effective solution to the local publishers and advertisers. Now that the digital spending is growing in Bangladesh unlike the early days of G&R and that the company has a solid footing in Bangladesh market and serving 1 billion ads a month, the company says it is just getting started.
Note: This is a developing story, please come back later for the further update.
