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Mobile carriers’ race for market share heats up
Since the opening up of the telecommunications sector after WTO admission in 2007, Vietnam’s mobile subscription rates have sky rocketed, bringing in a potential boon for the country’s state-run providers.
That would have been good news for some heavy-hitting companies when the economy was centrally-planned, but with the admission came sacrifices.
Vietnam was forced to open up the sector to foreign firms, providing they establish joint ventures with local companies. Back then there were only four companies stalking a territory that houses some of Asia’s highest subscription growth rates.
Today, with the advent of Beeline, a Vietnamese-Russian joint venture and seventh provider to enter the fray, the competition is getting tougher.
Beeline or GTel Mobile has come in hard, offering rates at 30 percent lower than big-name competitors, such as Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone.
The problem for the new network is that it only covers Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Trying to address this shortfall, the company has launched the BigZero promotion allowing Beeline users to talk for free from the second to twentieth minute of calls to other Beeline numbers, Vietnam News Agency reported.
With another competitor entering the ring, the remaining six providers also jumped on the wagon to slash fees and offer promotions to maintain and expand market share.
MobiFone, under the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), has just ended its promotion of offering 120 percent value for users buying a card worth VND100,000 (US$5.62) on August 6, according to Saigon Times.
Another subsidiary of VNPT, Vinaphone, has slashed its charges by up to 21 percent since June. The provider is also offering a promotion for new post and pre-paid subscribers to enjoy new account activation for VND65,000 ($3.65) and VND105,000 ($6) of free service within 110 days.
Military-run Viettel is offering double value for cards for new accounts.
The three telecom carriers also give away gifts, lucky draws and free calls.
To compete with major market share holders, Vietnamobile, a joint venture formed in April between Hanoi Telecom and Hong Kong-based Hutchison, offers pre-paid users 200 percent of the value of cards worth over VND50,000 ($2.80).
The market also experienced a new technology movement early this year when four telecom firms, Viettel, MobiFone, VinaPhone and a consortium between EVN Telecom and Hanoi Telecom, were granted licenses to apply Vietnam’s first high-speed 3G mobile phone services.
The third generation (3G) mobile network will allow mobile phone users in Vietnam to access videophone, online video streaming and high-speed Internet and music downloads.
The four firms deposited about VND8.1 trillion ($456.2 million) to win the bid, with Viettel being the biggest spender by paying VND4.5 trillion ($252.69 million) for the license, Sai Gon Tiep Thi (Sai Gon Marketing) newspaper reported.
Vietnam’s four future 3G network providers are expected to make a total investment of VND40 trillion ($2.45 billion) to develop the new network.
EVT Telecom and Hanoi Telecom told Saigon Times last month that they would invest VND6 trillion ($336.93) to construct 5,000 base transceiver stations nationwide to provide 3G service for their clients.
Hong Nguyen
vietnews
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