VietNamNet Bridge – There had been 143 million mobile subscribers in Vietnam as of end-May, 1.5 times higher than the country’s population, but the growth in the number of subscribers has markedly slowed down, said Vietnam Telecommunications Authority.

Over the past year, the number of mobile subscribers has risen by only 20 million. The increase in previous years was twice as much as this figure, said the telecom authority at a six-month review conference held in Hanoi on Monday.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Le Nam Thang attributed the slow growth in the mobile subscriber number to the policies adopted by the telecom authority to restrict the purchase of new SIM cards.

The authority issued several documents in the first six months, giving instructions for management of mobile subscribers in a bid to reduce the number of virtual subscribers. The authority asked enterprises to deal with the unsold SIM cards at their sales agents to save mobile number resource.

Nguyen Duc Trung, deputy director of Vietnam Telecommunications Authority, said the authority would join hands with local departments of information and communications to conduct an extensive inspection on compliance with Circular 04 on management of prepaid mobile subscribers.

Mobile service providers said the slowdown in subscriber number growth did not greatly affect their revenues. Although the number of subscribers grew rapidly in the previous period, the majority of them were virtual subscribers, not generating profits for mobile carriers.

Circular 04 issued by the information ministry is a strong measure to reduce the number of virtual subscribers. If the telecom authority went ahead with its inspection plan, the growth in the number of mobile subscribers would slow down further, said experts.

Though competition among players in the mobile market stimulates growth, it leads to a price war and possibly impairs service quality. Therefore, Trung said his authority would tighten control on promotions to create a healthy competition.

Source: SGT