MobiFone, Vinaphone to merge | Look At Vietnam

MobiFone, Vinaphone to merge

June 16, 2012

Viet Nam mobile giants MobiFone and Vinaphone will merge as scheduled as part of the Government’s restructuring plan for State-owned enterprises, the Ministry of Information and Communications said.
The statement, which ended the long debate and speculation on the fate of the two mobile operators, was made by Minister Nguyen Bac Son during an online conversations with citizens via government web-portal in Ha Noi.
Son said the merge of the two companies was inevitable as it was the best solution for the restructuring of the telecom industry in Viet Nam.
“The ministry will submit the plan for final approval from the Government,” he said.
Son point out that the 88 million population now had some 130 million mobile phone subscribers of which 122 million were prepaid and only 8 million were post-paid.
“This is contrast to the rest of the world where most countries apply strict regulations on prepaid subscription” Son said.
Son said the mobile market competition in Viet Nam was not healthy as most mobile operators here just developed prepaid segments by reducing service prices and applying loose subscription requirements.
After merging, the two mobile service operators would mutually exploit VNPT’s network infrastructure, while the mobile phone numbers of their subscribers would be maintained.
The merger decision came after the Government last year issued a new regulation on telecom ownership, which came into effect on June 1, 2011, stipulating that an investor with more than a 20 per cent stake in one telecom firm cannot own more than 20 per cent in another.
The new rule has forced VNPT, which owns 100 per cent of both VinaPhone and MobiFone, to choose between divesting itself of one operator or merging them.
It is a dilemma because VinaPhone and MobiFone are too lucrative to give up, with the latter contributing half of VNPT’s total profits, market analysts said.
It was understandable that VNPT wanted to merge the two networks. The conglomerate’s profit in 2011 was VND10 trillion (US$470 million), of which 80 per cent came from MobiFone and VinaPhone.
VNS

Big network operators prove to be more “indocile” | Look At Vietnam - Vietnam news daily update

Big network operators prove to be more “indocile”

December 13, 2011 about Uncategorized

LookAtVietnam - As predicted, after Beeline, a small network operator,
launched the “billionaire service package”–a new war in the mobile call charges
has been kicked off. While Beeline has been told to stop the super-cheap
package, big guys have jumped on the bandwagon.

The state management agency has the right to “blow its whistle” asking network
operators to stop the activities that it believes the signs of unhealthy
competition. However, in some cases, its actions have no effect, if the network
operators are the “big cheeses”.
Meanwhile, small mobile network operators had to stop their sale promotion
campaigns immediately after they were instructed to do that.
“Small telecom companies prove to be more obedient to the instructions of the
Ministry of Information and Communication than the big ones,” an official of the
ministry commented on Thoi bao Kinh te Vietnam.
The words of the official partially can show the current situation of the
telecom market.
Three months ago, Beeline launched the “billionaire service package”, offering
low charges in an effort to attract more users. Under the sale promotion
campaign, when people bought a simcard priced at 20,000 dong, they would have
20,000 dong in their main account. Besides, Beeline would give 270,000 dong more
to the users’ account every day. As such, people need to pay 20,000 dong and
they would have one billion dong in account for use for 10 years. However, the 1
billion dong could be used only to make inner-network calls.
However, the super-cheap package has no more been available on the market, after
the Ministry of Information and Communication instructed Beeline to stop
providing the package. The ministry said that it can see the signs of dumping
the mobile call charges which will influence the market’s operation.
Meanwhile, right after Beeline’s program stopped, some big guys on the telecom
market have also launched attractive service packages with very low charges. As
predicted by experts, the telecom market is now witnessing a new mobile call
charges competition when the big guys jump on the bandwagon.
Viettel, the mobile network with the highest number of subscribers, has launched
Tomato Green package, offering the super-cheap charge of 50 dong per
call-minute. Tomato Green is being applied to new pre-paid subscribers and the
subscribers who are using Tomato, Sumosim packages activated since June 1, 2011.
Tomato Green has been applied since November and will last on January 30, 2012.
With Tomato Green, clients can make 150 free messages and enjoy the low charge
of 50 dong per minute for the inner-network calls from 10 pm to 12 pm and 500
dong per minute for the calls from 0 am to 5 pm every day.
However, Viettel’s Tomato Green proves to make nothing if MobiFone’s Alo 24/7
program applied from November 29 to December 10, 2011. The noteworthy thing is
that the mobile network does not run noisy ad campaigns on mass media, does not
introduce the new package on its official website. It only quietly sends
information to mobile subscribers.
With Alo24/7, MobiFone’s subscribers, when registering the package, can enjoy
free 80 inner-network minute calls, i.e the charges of 7500 dong for 130 minute
calls, 10,000 dong for 180 minutes, 15,000 dong for 300 minutes within the day.
As such, users just have to pay 50-60 dong per minute.
A manager of a telcom has raised a question that if the above said service
packages could be considered as dumping on the market and should the packages be
stopped, like the Beeline’s package.
Big network operators are the ones who hold big market shares with the numbers
of subscribers reaching tens of millions for each. Therefore, once they apply
big sale promotion campaigns, they would destroy the market structure, and the
impacts of their promotion campaigns would be even more serious than the ones of
small network operators.
Source: TBKTVN

Inner-network call package war anticipated | Look At Vietnam - Vietnam news daily update

Inner-network call package war anticipated

November 12, 2011 about Uncategorized

LookAtVietnam - Undercurrent waves have been raised on the telecom
market. Telcos rush to offer big preferences for inner-network call packages in
order to attract more subscribers.

Right after Beeline’s “billionaire package” finishes on October 31, VinaPhone,
one of the three biggest mobile network operators in Vietnam, launched the “10
minute call” package with attractive preferences, applied to all VinaPhone’s
MobiFone’s and VNPT’s fixed line subscribers.
A representative of VinaPhone revealed that the launching of the service package
aims to retain subscribers.
The “Beeline’s effect”
The “billionaire package” and the super-cheap mobile phones launched into the
market by Beeline in the period between September and October, proves to be the
biggest wave on the mobile telecom market so far this year.
The promotion campaign activated by Beeline once drew the special attention from
the public, and Beeline’s services have become the choice of many families and
offices.
Hoang Hai Yen, an officer of a media company in Dong Da district in Hanoi, said
that she has bought 120 Beeline super-cheap mobile phones and simcards for all
the members of the company and her family members. Previously, officers of the
company used services of different mobile network operators, while they now only
use Beeline’s services.
The works of a media company require the staff to communicate with each other
regularly. Yen said that in the past, she had to spend 300,000 dong a month on
call charges. But now she has to pay 20,000 dong only.
“It is clear that the Beeline’s package is much cheaper than that of other
network operators,” she said.
Yen has also purchased 5 Beeline’s mobile phones for her family, saying that
since the mobile phones were put into use, the mobile phones using Viettel’s or
MobiFone’s services have been put idle.
In general, when mobile network operators launch super cheap packages in sale
promotion campaigns, they mostly target general school and university students,
while the preferences are only applied for a certain short time. Therefore, when
promotion campaigns finish, people would leave the network operators for others
and shift to use other more attractive packages.
However, Beeline applied a special policy for its sale promotion campaign. It
offered “super-cheap” fees to the subscribers with the subscription prefixes of
0993 and 0995 for a long period of 10 years. By doing so, Beeline not only can
attract new more users, but also retain clients for at least 10 years.
It is clear that the package has changed the habit of using mobile phones for
communication and has created “Beeline offices”. It is very likely that the
clients using the “billionaire package” would become a loyal subscriber of
Beeline, if the quality of Beeline’s services is okay.
The war in inner-network call packages begins
Like Beeline, Vietnamobile is considered one of the small mobile networks in
Vietnam. The biggest success of the network operator is the launching of Maxi
Talk package into the market which has helped attract a big number of
subscribers.
Maxi Talk of Vietnamobile allows people to talk all the day long with just 5000
dong. Maxi Talk, the backbone of Vietnamobile got the title “the most excellent
package of 2010” granted by the Ministry of Information and Communication.
According to Elibabete Fong, General Director of Vietnamobile, thanks to Maxi
Talk, after one year, the mobile network operator has attracted millions more
subscribers, who are students and office workers. By January 2011, the network
had attracted 10 million subscribers.
Meanwhile, Beeline’s number of subscribers has increased by nearly 400 percent
just after 1.5 months after it launched the billionaire package.
Experts believe that inner-network calls will bring more opportunities to small
network operators, while they do not have advantages in inter-network calls,
because it still depends on connection fee policies applied by different network
operators.
Source: TBKTVN

Vietnam To Introduce 3G Technology In 2009

HANOI, Jan 19 (Bernama) -- Telecommunications industry insiders are predicting that 3G (third generation) technology will be introduced in Vietnam this year, the Vietnam news agency (VNA) reported.With 3G technology, mobile providers in Vietnam will be able to provide more value-added services for their mobile users such as videophone, on-line video streaming and high-speed internet and music download."Vietnam 's telecom market expects to reach a turnover of between US$ 6 to US$7 billion in 2010, which promises a huge market for mobile service providers," said a member of the management board of VNPT Group - which operates mobile service providers Mobifone and Vinaphone.VNPT spokesman Bui Quoc Viet said that Mobifone and Vinaphone were prepared to introduce 3G soon.Vietnam currently has nearly 80 million mobile subscribers, of which Viettel accounts for 26 million, Mobifone 26 million and Vinaphone 20 million.The industry has seen 30 percent annual growth in recent years.In the Ho Chi Minh City, the city's Mobile Co's senior technician Tran Lam Thinh said the company was preparing to introduce a metropolitan area network (MAN), linking the city with high-speed connections using fibre-optic cable and other digital media to meet increasing customer demand for high-speed internet service.Thinh said the MAN would help serve industrial and hi-tech zones, major commercial centres, and new urban areas with high-speed connections. It would also connect State administrative agencies, facilitating the provision of e-Government services as well as promoting the growth of e-commerce.The city's Department of Information and Communication, HCM City People's Committee, Dong A Bank and HCM City Water Supply Co were all preparing to utilise the MAN, Thinh said.Mobifone has a Call Me service for subscribers who have their incoming and outgoing calls barred. It enables them to send SMS to other domestic subscribers to call them back.Subscribers can send five free domestic messages in one week.-- BERNAMA