Mytel, Viettel’s mobile company in Myanmar, has signed up more than two million subscribers in just one month since officially starting operations.

This is Viettel’s quickest to two million in any of its 11 markets around the world, including Vietnam, and is an achievement few telecom companies anywhere in the world can match considering the global slowdown in the industry.

The Vietnamese market used to hold world records for the fastest growth, but Viettel still needed one year to reach two million.

Hitherto, the fastest to two million subscribers was by Halotel, Viettel’s Tanzanian operation, which took nine months.

According to Nguyen Thanh Nam, Mytel’s general director, two million subscribers is a milestone for Mytel since the number is big enough for achieving economies of scale.

“A large customer base will enable Mytel to carry out promotion campaigns to attract new clients,” he said.

Before starting operations, Viettel’s target was to sign up two to three million customers in 2018.

However, within one month of starting operations (on June 9), Mytel reached the two million mark, with 4G subscribers accounting for 70 percent.

In Myanmar, it is the only operator to provide 4G services nation-wide using its 30,000km of fibre-optic cable, which make up 50 percent of the country’s total cable infrastructure.

Mytel has a nation-wide distribution system with 50 stores and 50,000 sales agents, 70 percent of them in rural and remote areas.

Mytel charges calls in one-second blocks instead of 15- or 20-second blocks like its competitors do.

Besides its huge infrastructure and distribution system and attractive products, careful market research into local people’s mindset and habits has also helped Mytel grow rapidly.

Viettel Group made profits in eight of its 10 overseas markets —Peru, Cambodia, Laos, Haiti, Burundi, East Timor, Mozambique, and Cameroon —in the first half of this year.

Myanmar is the biggest in terms of population and is expected to grow at the fastest rate this year and make a substantial difference to Viettel’s international growth.

Mytel now targets four million subscribers by the end of this year and breaking even by the end of 2019.

Its capital of 1.5 billion USD represents 66 percent of all Vietnamese investment in Myanmar. With the project, Vietnam climbed from 10th place to seventh in the list of 49 countries and territories investing in Myanmar, and was the second largest ASEAN investor as of June 2017.-VNS/VNA