Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone, the three biggest mobile service providers in Vietnam, have admitted to the tendency of post-paid subscribers becoming to pre-paid subscribers, though they declined to reveal the number of subscribers. This has been blamed on the unfair treatment that mobile service providers apply to pre-paid and post-paid subscribers.

Most new subscribers are pre-paid subscribers

Despite the increase in the number of newly registered subscribers, mobile phone service subscribers are not content because the average income per subscriber tends to decrease.

In 2010, 155 million subscriber numbers, belonging mostly the three biggest mobile operators, were activated. Sources from the operators said that the number of post-paid subscribers just accounted for 10 percent. And this has been cited as the main reason which explains why the average income per subscribers is low. In 2010, every subscriber brought a modest turnover of 70,000 dong a month to mobile service providers.

Tu, a mobile phone user in Tan Binh district in HCM City, related that previously, she had one subscriber number, a post-paid subscriber, and she had to pay 1.8 million dong a month for mobile services. Now, when she has two subscriber numbers, a pre-paid number and a post-paid subscriber number, she spends only 600,000 dong.

“My post-paid subscriber is used to receive calls, while the pre-paid subscriber is used to make calls,” Tu said.

Tu decided to register a pre-paid subscriber number, because she knows that mobile service providers regularly launch promotion campaigns, which makes call charges very cheap if compared with the charges imposed on post-paid subscribers.

Tu is not alone. A lot of mobile service users have pre-paid subscriber numbers, because they believe that with pre-paid subscribers, they can use mobile services at lower expenses.

According to mobile service operators, 97 percent of new subscribers are normal subscribers, while the other three percent are 3G subscribers. The number of post-paid subscribers registered in 2010 was modest, just eight percent of the total number of subscribers.

According to VinaPhone and MobiFone, they attracted two million post-paid subscribers from the promotion program under which fees are not charged on the inner-network calls of less than 10 minutes made by VinaPhone’s and MobiFone’s subscribers. However, the two mobile service providers still do not know how many post-paid subscribers will stay after the program finishes.

Unfair treatment

Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone, the three biggest mobile service providers in Vietnam, have admitted the tendency of post-paid subscribers becoming pre-paid subscribers, though they declined to reveal the number of subscribers.

Observers also have confirmed the tendency, saying that the number of post-paid subscribers becoming pre-paid subscribers increases every time when mobile service operators launch new promotion campaigns.

“It is not a strange thing in Vietnam that mobile service users regularly leave  one network for other networks, and give up one service package to use other packages.  “It’s important to note that the majority of newly registered subscribers are pre-paid subscribers,” said the manager of a mobile network.

The unfair treatment between pre-paid and post-paid subscribers has been cited as the main reason behind the “unfaithfulness” of mobile phone users. Pre-paid subscribers regularly enjoy promotion campaigns offered by mobile service providers, while post-paid subscribers do not enjoy any special care from mobile service providers.

In fact, mobile service operators have been trying to retain post-paid subscribers, because the subscribers generate stable income for the networks. For example, operators give gifts and flowers to post-paid subscribers on their birthdays, or offer charge preferences when subscribers use the services provided by the partners of the service providers, or offer discounts for the bills of the subscribers. However, all the preferences offered to post-paid subscribers are nothing if compared with the things pre-paid subscribers enjoy.

An executive of Viettel has also admitted that the service provider has not done much to show gratuity post-paid subscribers.

Binh Minh