Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, CEO of ROBI: "4G will be key to the future of Bangladesh and to the future of Robi. There's no conventional short-term business case for us in 4G in Bangladesh today, but ROBI's strategic goal, and Bangladesh's continued economic emergence, depend on it." A merger for national success Robi became Bangladesh's second largest mobile operator with over 32.2 million subscribers in 2016 through a merger between Airtel and Axiata as part of an investment venture between Bharti Airtel of India, Axiata Group of Malaysia, and NTT Docomo of Japan. The merger was the largest ever undertaken in Bangladesh. "In many ways, the merger was a test of the country's economic, regulatory, and legal development. Not everything went the way we expected, but future mergers in Bangladesh will benefit from the lessons that were learned," says Ahmed. Ahmed defines the merger as a success so far the company has achieved the level of direct cost optimization we expected from the agreement.