Vietnam’s telco industry has experienced tremendous growth over the last two years, but growth is expected to slow as the telco industry begins to mature.

This brings added challenges to an already competitive telco market, according to a new PwC publication titled ‘Making Waves.’ This publication takes a look at the state of the telco industry across Southeast Asia, with a special focus on Vietnam.

Between 2008 and 2010, Vietnam’s industry revenue and mobile subscribers have more than doubled to $10.3 billion and 155.5 million subscribers respectively.

Vietnam has one of the lowest mobile tariff rates and highest mobile penetration rates in the Southeast Asian region, according to the publication. Generic telco product offerings have led to further price pressures as telco operators seek to protect and grow market share through price.

“Competing on price alone isn’t enough to generate additional revenue and returns as the market reaches saturation. Vietnamese telco operators need to change their business and organisational models to differentiate, add value, provide new revenue streams and reduce costs - all at the same time. This can be achieved through a combination of customer focus, streamlining operations and collaboration with other communications providers,” said Johnathan Ooi, director, Advisory Services, PwC Vietnam.

By understanding customers’ changing communication patterns and lifestyles, telco operators can then strive to provide more personalised experiences. This will lead to product differentiation and also open up new revenue streams.

In terms of streamlining operations, Johnathan said that telcos should adopt an asset-light model. This can be accomplished through outsourcing and sharing of non-core assets and resources, which will cut down on operating and capital expenditure. Increasing collaborations and integrations between business units to operate holistically, instead of in separate silos, is another way. By doing this, telcos can provide end-to-end customer service, and enhance revenue streams.

“To save on capital expenditure, telcos can leverage on third party resources. For example, by partnering with application and multimedia content providers to develop innovative 3G content, they can gain new content without investing too much up front,” said Johnathan. “Collaborations make it more feasible and less risky for operators to roll out 3G services and network infrastructure in rural areas,” he said.

Source: VIR