Mobile-phone industry bucks economic trends

The Hanoi Times - The mobile phone industry performed exceptionally well last year to reach high development targets despite the world recession.

While the rest of the national economy faced major challenges, the three biggest mobile network suppliers, MobiFone, Viettel and VinaPhone, invested enough capital to double their 2007 network capacity, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications.

By the end of 2008, subscriptions to the suppliers had increased to about 500,000 a day.

MobiFone took the lion’s share of the market, with 250,000 new subscribers, followed by Viettel with 160,000 and Vinaphone 80,000.

In the past, o­nly the wealthy owned mobile phones. This changed in 2008, with mobile phones becoming increasingly popular throughout the country.

For VND1,000 per month, Vietnamese people can subscribe to packages like Mobi365, Vina365 or Tomato.

Mobile network suppliers offer subscribers promotional programmes such as doubling or tripling their account balance.

These promotional programmes are unusual in the context of high inflation but they are proving lucrative for mobile network suppliers.

MobiFone, Viettel and VinaPhone contribute billions of dong to the State budget.

MobiFone earned a profit of VND6 trillion out of a total revenue of VND17 trillion and paid nearly VND3.5 trillion to the State in 2008.

Last year, mobile network suppliers poured money into improving service quality as well as increasing production. Suppliers upgraded their service to ensure call quality.

The country has 82 million phone subscribers of whom 85.5 percent use mobile phones.