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Mobile phone market attractive to foreign investors
With growth rate of 60-70 percent a year, the highest in Asia , the Vietnamese mobile phone market has become an attractive destination for foreign telecom groups.
In addition to telecom companies which have run businesses profitably in Vietnam for a long time like Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens and Nokia, the coming of many new trademarks including Telenor of Norway, NTT DocoMo of Japan, Vodafone of Britain and Lucent Technologies of the US in the country has shown foreign investors’ keen interest in this market.
Foreign businesses have not only developed marketing in Vietnam but also planed to establish joint ventures and took part in the equitisation of domestic telecom companies.
Recently, Vimpel Com, a large mobile phone company of Russia , has signed an agreement to set up a joint venture with the Global Telecom Corporation with the aim of providing all kinds of telecom services in Vietnam .
VimpelCom has committed 1 billion USD investment in Vietnam and technical supply for development of Vietnam ’s GSM network.
The equitisation of MobiFone, the largest mobile phone firm in Vietnam , has selected Credit Suisse from Switzerland from ten foreign companies which were interested in providing consultation.
Holding that Vietnam ’s demand for mobile communications is increasing, many foreign companies are willing to take part in the equitisation of State-owned mobile phone companies.
Ola Ree, chief of Norway ’s Telenor representative office in Vietnam , said that the domestic mobile telecom market has seen spectacular progress and his company is eager to expand its investment in the market.
As one of the seven largest mobile phone service providers in the world, Telenor came in Vietnam in 2005, is planning to become a strategic partner of a Vietnamese mobile phone provider.
Roger de Bazelaire, Vice President of Russia’s Altimo Group, praised the development of Vietnam ’s telecom industry in the recent past. He said he considered Vietnam as a strategic investment market.
Deputy Minister of Information and Telecommunications Nguyen Thanh Hung said that even though foreign businesses are interested in Vietnam ’s mobile phone market, Vietnam should continue improving the investment environment to make full use of this source of capital. He urged domestic businesses to actively cooperate with foreign partners.
According to statistics, by the end of July 2008, Vietnam has more than 48 million mobile phone subscribers with four largest national providers, namely MobiFone, VinaPhone, Viettel and S-Fone.
VNA
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