The mobile market is expected to continue prospering this year; it will be a race between: MobiFone, Viettel and Vinaphone.

In 2006, Vietnam had seven million new mobile users. That figure doubled in 2007, to approximately 14 million. In 2007, the three major players in the mobile market competed by slashing charges and this year, according to telecom experts, they will try to win over customers by improving service quality.

Last year, mobile network operators invested a lot towards expanding their coverage.

Le Ngoc Minh, Director of VMS-MobiFone, said last year his company focused on expanding the network by building 4,500 new base transceiver stations (BTS), which is equivalent to the total number of BTSs they built in 13 years.

Meanwhile, Viettel reported it expanded its network to 1,005 communes, with a total of 7,000 BTSs. The number of new BTSs installed in 2007 is equal to that of the three previous years. Viettel plans to bring its number of BTSs to 11-12,000 this year, enough to serve 40 million subscribers.

“Our policy is expanding coverage to remote and isolated areas, where there are at least 200 families,” said a Viettel official.

Vinaphone, formerly the largest mobile network, modestly said that it is trying to complete installation of 3,000 new BTSs in late 2008 to raise the total number to 9,000.

Regarding competition policy in 2008, officials of MobiFone and Vinaphone told VietNamNet they are preparing technical infrastructure to implement third generation (3G) technology.

Notably, MobiFone will begin to provide broadband data transmission services in early 2008 to become the first and only mobile network in Vietnam offering high-speed GPRS.

Source: Vietnam Net