Small mobile
networks are trying to increase their numbers of subscribers by launching
service packages that fit the pockets of popular people. However, they have
been warned that it will be not easy to do so,
especially when the market has become saturated, and bigger mobile
networks themselves are also determined to expand their market share.

Big mobile
networks, including MobiFone, VinaPhone and Viettel, reportedly hold 90 percent
of the telecom market share. Meanwhile, there has been no sign showing that the
four small networks, Vietnamobile, S-Fone, EVN Telecom and Beeline will be able
to breakthrough to make changes to their current positions on the market.

To date,
S-Fone and EVN Telecom still cannot settle their problems to stabilize their
operations. The EVN Telecom’s deal to sell shares to FPT is still under
negotiation, while it seems that FPT is not very interested in the affair.

Meanwhile,
S-Fone has said that it will release official information about its shift to
operate under the mode of joint venture and about the choosing of strategic
partners. Dau tu newspaper has quoted its source as saying that S-Fone’s
strategic partner will be a domestic investor.

As for Vietnamobile,
the network has launched a promotion program to attract more clients.
Meanwhile, the information that its clients most anticipate is the when it will
launch its 3G network. Vietnamobile once announced that it will launch 3G
network in June 2010. However, after EVN Telecom announced the launching of its
3G network, Vietnamobile has left its own plan unsaid.

After a long time of keeping silent Beeline
has launched a program to transfer “beautiful” subscriber numbers to clients
through SMS messages. The network operator has affirmed that with a profuse
stock of numbers with the prefixes “0199” and “099” which are considered the
“golden prefixes”, Beeline will satisfy all the demand of clients.

At first,
analysts thought that the subscriber numbers with prefixes “099” would be
selling like hot cakes on the market because Vietnamese people, especially
superstitious businessmen, consider “099” a lucky number. However, sales agents
have reported that the sim cards with prefixes have been selling rather slowly.

Huynh, the
owner of a sim card sales agent in Hanoi,
said that the sim cards officially appeared on the market in late 2010.
However, the sale of the sim cards has not caught the attention from the
public. “Sometimes I cannot sell any sim cards during the day,” he said.

Explaining
the indifference of clients to the sim cards, the owner of a shop on Kim Ma street in Hanoi said that after
launching the impressively cheap service package “Big Zero” in July 2009, the
telecom network seems to have shrunk in competition.

While small
networks have been reserved in releasing information about their business plans
in 2011, big mobile networks’ operators all show their determination to expand
their market share.

Le Ngoc
Minh, President of VMS-MobiFone has said that MobiFone strives to get five
million new subscribers in 2011 and obtain the turnover of 39 trillion dong.

Meanwhile,
VinaPhone also hopes to get five million more subscribers to raise its total
number of subscribers to 40 million. Viettel has not said exactly how many more
subscribers it strives to have in 2011, but said that it would hold 45-48
percent of the mobile service market by the end of the year.

In the
latest news, according to the General Statistics Office, by the end of February
2011, the number of telephone subscribers reached 172.6 million, increasing by
32.5 percent in comparison with the same period of 2010.

These
include 16.5 million fixed line subscribers, an increase of 2.4 percent, and
156.1 million mobile subscribers, an increase of 36.8 percent.

C. V