VietNamNet Bridge – Vowing to compete with the three “big giants” VinaPhone, MobiFone and Viettel, Beeline has launched an impressive promotion campaign to attract more users, which has made the telecom market become hottest than ever.

While Beeline feels happy with the high number of new subscribers it has got after marketing the “billionaire” simcards, other network operators have called on the watchdog agency to thoroughly reconsider the shocking promotion campaign.

People rush to buy “billionaire simcards”

Just having to pay a small sum of money monthly, subscribers, who own the “billionaire simcards” would have up to one billion dong in their accounts which allows them to make calls to their relatives and friends within 10 years without any limitations.

The attractive offer explains why a lot of people rush to buy the billionaire simcards these days. Using billionaire simcards has become in fashion among office workers and students, who like to gossip with friends through phones in spare time. Especially, they buy billionaire simcards not only for themselves, but give the simcards to friends as gifts as well.

The simcard shops on Kim Ma and Nguyen Thai Hoc streets, or in front of the Economics University are always full of visitors these days. A shop owner on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street said that five out of every 10 visitors come to ask for billionaire simcards. He said a lot of shop owners have become specialized in selling Beelines simcards and pre-paid cards.

Not only Beeline’s simcards are being hunted, Beeline’s phones are also being looked for, which has raised the prices of the phones up. Those, who want a Beeline mobile phone, would have to pay 350,000 dong, while the original price of the phone is just 149,000 dong.

“Simcards are running out. Sometimes we have to borrow simcards from other shops to sell to customers,” the shop owner said.

“We anticipated that the demand would be very high once the impressive promotion campaign is launched. Therefore, I decided to take a number of simcards which is triple that of ordinary days, but I have nearly sold out all the simcards,” he continued. “I know some shops have pushed the sale price of the simcard to 35-40,000 dong”.

Bee168268, a member of the GSM forum, proves to keep cautious when pointing out the “weak points” of the billionaire package. He said that though this is considered a service package, this is just a promotion program, a part of the Beeline Return program. This means that the network operator can stop the billionaire simcard program at any time. Meanwhile, the program allowing people to shift from using normal simcards to billionaire cards will finish in late October.

Meanwhile, the impressive promotion campaign by Beeline has made other network operators displeased. They said that when developing many “billionaire” subscribers, Beeline can increase its number of subscribers rapidly, but the new subscribers would be the heavy burden to the frequency band the revenue of the system.

Tien phong newspaper, quoting its sources, has reported that over the last five weeks, since the billionaire package was launched into the market on September 16, the number of Beeline’s subscribers has increased by 301 percent. This means that Beeline has nearly 10,000 new subscribers a day.

Pham Ngoc Tu, a senior executive of VinaPhone, one of the three biggest mobile network operators, said that VinaPhone’s subscribers do not leave VinaPhone for Beeline, and that those who buy Beeline billionaire simcards just want to use the simcards as their second or third choice.

However, Tu said that the billionaire package is really very attractive and that the network operators have made a very wise move when launching the service package.

New race on the telecom market?

However, commenting about the new move of Beeline, experts believe that the promotion campaign can hardly make any changes in the market, where VinaPhone, MobiFone and Viettel are the three giants. They said that the telecom market performance has been decided by a lot of factors, including the network, service, the customer care service and the prestige of the brands, and not only by the low charges.

Nguyen Viet Dung, Deputy Director of Viettel Telecom, has affirmed that 10,000 new subscribers per day would not be too big to the current telecom market.

However, Dung has warned that such a shocking promotion campaign may trigger a new race on the telecom market.

Source: Tien phong