Vietnam has improved its rank three places to 14th in the Asia Pacific Telecommunications Business Environment Rating, said the UK-based Business Monitor International (BMI).

BMI released a third quarter report seeing Vietnam sit ahead of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. However, Vietnam still ranks behind Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia in Southeast Asia.

According to BMI, the country’s rating has improved thanks to the fast-growing mobile phone service segment.

For instance, fierce competition among industry players and diversified promotion programs have led to a huge number of mobile service users and the telecommunication penetration rate is recorded at around 170%.

Meanwhile, internet services have achieved increasingly rapid growth, making the mobile telecommunications business sector more and more attractive at home.

At the same time, the local environment also faces risks, in which ARPU (average revenue per user) has fallen considerably as the number of pre-paid users account for more than 90% while 3G services haven’t been used up.

BMI now estimates Vietnam’s ARPU at US$4.49 for one subscriber and is expected to revise it down to US$3.51 in 2015.

BMI also warned that if the local mobile industry still continued unsustainable products and services, its development would slow down in the next few years.

Besides, BMI advised domestic mobile service suppliers to upgrade telecommunication infrastructures and create value-added services to increase sales as the fixed telephone business is on the downtrend.

SGT