About SMC and SMC Enterprise Ltd (SMC EL)
For more than five decades, the Social Marketing Company (SMC) has been a driving force in the public health landscape of Bangladesh committed to improving the lives of women, children, and families through a sustainable social marketing approach and innovations. Established in 1975 as the Family Planning Social Marketing Project (FPSMP), SMC started journey to address rapid population growth.
Today, SMC is widely recognized as a global model for transitioning from donor dependence to financial sustainability, having established an integrated approach that combines socially impactful programs with profit-making ventures. The Company ensures access to high-quality, affordable health products and services that improve family planning, maternal and child health, adolescent well-being, disease prevention, and nutrition across all corners of Bangladesh.
Over the years, the company added different health and hygiene products, developed networks of private healthcare providers, established manufacturing facilities, applied innovative marketing approach and introduced innovative community mobilization programs. These initiatives not only ensured the sales growth but also started to generate profit in 2014. To separate its profit-driven ventures from its core social mission, it created a fully owned subsidiary, SMC Enterprise Ltd (SMC EL) which now plays a critical role in ensuring financial sustainability. Together, SMC and SMC EL embody a hybrid model that blends development with enterprise, ensuring that social good remains at the heart of success.
In its long journey, SMC has now become an essential partner of the national health and family planning program. According to the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2022, about 49% of modern temporary contraceptive users in the country rely on SMC-branded methods. Oral contraceptive pills produced and marketed by SMC hold about 54% of the national market share, condoms account for 73%, and injectables make up around 50%. This makes SMC not only the leading player in Bangladesh but also the third-largest contraceptive social marketing organization in the world, as per the 2023 Contraceptive Social Marketing Statistics released by DKT International.
Beyond family planning, SMC ORSaline has saved millions of lives since the 1980s and today holds about 93% of the national market share. The company further strengthened child health programs by introducing Zinc supplements in 2008 to treat child diarrhea as an adjunct therapy with ORS, and Micronutrient Powder (MoniMix) for under-five children to address anemia which has grown dramatically over the past decade.
SMC launched Multiple Micronutrient Supplements branded as FullCare in 2021 provided a vital intervention to improve low birth weight and the nutritional status of pregnant women. Similarly, the introduction of Calcium supplements branded as Forbon helps to prevent life-threatening conditions like eclampsia during pregnancy. Alongside nutrition, SMC continues to address adolescent health and hygiene by marketing Joya sanitary napkins, now one of the most popular brands in Bangladesh.
The organization also contributes actively to the national tuberculosis program, referring 288,239 presumptive cases through its Star networks and ensuring timely diagnosis and treatment in collaboration with the government and private sector in Bangladesh.
SMC and SMC EL together offer wide range of public health products in Bangladesh. The products with huge public health importance but still need significant investment and subsidies for behavioral change is considered as program products. While the products which is being marketed commercially is categorized as enterprise products including pharmaceuticals. The product portfolios of SMC and SMC EL are shown in the following table:
• Blue Star Network: Over 12,700 non-graduate private providers, offering family planning, reproductive health, pregnancy care, nutrition counseling, growth monitoring for under-five children, screening & referrals of Tuberculosis (TB), administering injectable contraceptives and referrals of Long-Acting Permanent Methods (LAPM) at community level.
• Green Star Network: More than 5,600 public health medicine sellers providing follow-up doses of injectable contraceptive, pregnancy care, nutrition counseling, growth monitoring for under-five children, and referrals of LAPM at community level.
• Pink Star Network: Around 654 graduate doctors, mainly gynecologists, offering intrauterine devices (IUDs), implants and injectable contraceptives through their private chambers and promoting maternal nutrition.
• Rose Star Network: About 301 pediatricians, counseling caregivers/mothers on child growth monitoring and nutrition for under-five children.
• Gold Star Network: Nearly 3,900 women entrepreneurs, selling SMC products, promoting health messages and organizing pregnancy care session at the doorstep, especially in rural and peri-urban areas.
Together, these networks create one of the largest private health outreach systems in Bangladesh, covering all districts and upazilas. They not only distribute products but also raise awareness, promote healthy behaviors, and provide affordable healthcare services.
In addition to Star Networks, SMC operates community mobilization programs through school sessions, and courtyard meetings to create health awareness and change health behaviors. The Program engaged Paramedics for offering pregnancy care services and promoting Multiple Micronutrient Supplements (MMS) and Calcium to the pregnant women. SMC has also established two clinics in Dhaka to provide affordable, high-quality diagnostic, consultation, and medicine services.
SMC has invested heavily in state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities to meet the growing demand for its wide product basket. These include:
• An ORS and pharmaceutical plant at Bhaluka, Mymensingh.
• A Food Manufacturing Division at Bhaluka for food and beverages.
• A Health and Hygiene Factory at Cumilla producing sanitary napkins, baby diapers, and wipes.
• An FMCG factory at Gazipur for electrolyte drinks and other consumer products.
These facilities are ISO-certified, GMP-compliant, and equipped with high-capacity, automated production lines. Collectively, they represent the commitment of SMC to quality, efficiency, and innovation.
Supporting these factories is a robust distribution and storage system, including a central warehouse in Mymensingh, regional warehouses in Bogura and Cumilla, and 12 area offices nationwide. SMC's sales forces and distributors ensure that products reach more than 800,000 pharma and non-pharma outlets annually.
The organization has also embraced digital platforms for promotion and outreach, using social media and e-commerce to enhance accessibility for younger and tech-savvy consumers.
The creation of SMC EL in 2014 was a milestone in SMC's journey toward sustainability. As a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary, SMC EL manages the commercial side of operations while channeling surplus profits back into social programs. SMC EL handles the marketing of commercial contraceptives, ORS, nutrition products, hygiene items, food and beverages, and pharmaceuticals. By separating these profit-driven ventures, SMC ensures that program funds remain focused on public health while enterprise earnings expand financial capacity.
In 2017, SMC EL launched its Pharmaceutical Division with the key objective of "No One Should Suffer, Especially the Less-privileged Ones, due to Lack of Affordable Quality Medicine." Today, the division markets a range of 40 different pharmaceutical products across key therapeutic areas, contributing to both public health and revenue growth.
SMC EL has become a self-sustaining engine that supports SMC's social mission, demonstrating how non-profits can successfully blend development goals with market-based approaches.
From its modest beginnings as a family planning project in 1975 to its current role as a global leader in social marketing, SMC's journey is a story of resilience, innovation, and impact. Together with its subsidiary SMC Enterprise Ltd, it has built a model that balances public health priorities with financial sustainability, ensuring that millions of people across Bangladesh can access life-saving products and services.
SMC aspires to continue serving the population in future, as it has done in last 50 years, with full vigor and commitment to support the journey of Bangladesh to a prosperous nation. Its legacy is not only reflected in millions of contraceptive users, billions of ORS sachets, thousands of Star providers but also in the healthier, stronger, and more hopeful families it has empowered across the nation.
