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VietNamNet Bridge – To date, two years after the day when 3G technology was officially developed in Vietnam, none of the five mobile network service providers who are providing 3G services, has released the information about the existing numbers of 3G subscribers.
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Most recently, one year after officially launching 3G network, Viettel affirmed that it is now the service provider who has the highest number of BTS in South East Asia with 17,000 BTS. Meanwhile, the statistics about the number of 3G subscribers did not appear in any official documents released by Viettel.
Another 3G technology developer, VinaPhone, also has announced recently that it has installed 10,000 3G BTS nationwide, and has not released any information about the number of subscribers.
Service providers have not released any other information except the statistics about the use of 3G services. For example, Viettel said that the average consumption level of Dcom 3G service is equal to 60 percent of that of ADSL subscribers. The figure has been released to prove the conclusion that Vietnamese customers now have the habit of accessing wireless broadband Internet by using the company’s services. Meanwhile, Dcom is just one of the 18 3G services provided by Viettel.
The service provider has also released the figure that Viettel’s 3G subscribers have the consumption level higher by 45 percent than 2G subscribers, and the proportion of used value added services and data flow are higher by 3.5 times than that of non-3G subscribers.
Meanwhile, Tien phong has quoted its sources as saying that the number of 3G subscribers had reached 8 million by the end of 2010, while the figure is expected to reach 12 million by the end of 2011.
According to Fost & Sullivan, a consultancy and market survey firm, in 2010, the turnover from data services of Vietnamese service providers was 16.5 percent of ARPU, a low level if compared with that in other South East Asian countries. According to the firm, the figures are 52.8 percent in the Philippines, 35.4 percent in Singapore, 33.4 percent in Indonesia, 33.2 percent in Malaysia and 17.3 percent in Thailand.
Regarding ARPU, Dau tu has quoted a report by BMI, also a market survey firm, as saying that the ARPU in Vietnam may drop to 3.51 dollars in 2011, from five dollars in 2010, if there has been no change in the competition in the telecom sector.
The newspaper has also quoted Marc Einstein, a senior executive of Fost & Sullivan as saying that in order to increase the turnover from data services, service providers need to push up the use of smart phones and continue improving the 3G coverage area.
Sharing the same view, Vu Minh Tri, General Director of Qualcomm in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, said that in order to develop 3G services, terminal equipment needs to become cheaper. On the Vietnamese market, the most developing market segment is the one with the products priced at less than 150 dollars (about 80 percent). Meanwhile, 3G terminal equipments all are priced at more than 150 dollars.
However, Tri believes that the number of 3G terminal equipment with the price of less than 150 dollars would increase by the end of this year, which is really a driving force for 3G services to develop strongly. However, this will also put service providers under pressure. Once there are more users, the service providers will have to make heavier investment to upgrade the network capacity.
Commenting about the potential of 3G services, a telcom’s director said on Tien phong that the competition among service providers has become too fierce, while the demand for 3G services remains modest.
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