Vietnam’s
market, with 50 million regular mobile
phone subscribers, a developing 3G infrastructure , but a limited number of
mobile phone applications, is gold mine for foreign companies.

The unexplored territory

According
to the Ministry of Information and Communication, Vietnam now has 156.1 million phone
subscribers, 90.32 percent of which are mobile phones (180.7 phones per 100
people). Vietnam
has been listed among the markets with the highest growth rates in the world.

The market
is predicted to develop significantly in the time to come, when Vietnam
utilizes 3G technology on a large scale. MobiFone is now providing 60 different
services based on mobile network, VinaPhone 50. However, the services are just
basic services.

The mobile
phone application market is considered a gold mine as Vietnam is
trying to develop 3G technology, and the number of people using smartphones has
been rapidly increasing. According to Vien Thong A, a distributor of mobile
devices, smartphones have witnessed the most impressive growth rates in the
last few years. 367,712 smartphones were consumed in 2009, representing a sharp
increase of 434 percent in comparison with 2008. Meanwhile, the growth rate of
popular mobile phones has dropped from 34 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in
2009.

Hoang Ngoc
Diep, former General Director of Indochina Qualcomm, said that 3G technology in
Vietnam
has not been fully exploited and has not developed sustainably. “Digital
content services remain very poor,” he said

Diep
believes that Vietnam
now needs more and more enterprises to join the mobile applications market,
especially foreign companies which have significant experience in developing
mobile applications integrated with e-commerce and e-government

Will foreign companies jump into the
market?

Considered
a gold mine, of course, Vietnam
is catching the eyes of foreign companies.

In early
November, Opera Software, a Norwegian company, organized a market survey tour
to Vietnam.
Rolf Assev, strategic director of Opera Software said that he was so surprised
that Opera accounted for 70 percent of the mobile browser market in Vietnam especially because Opera Software has
not had any advertisement campaigns in Vietnam.

“Vietnam is
really a very attractive market that we must not miss,” he said

According
to Opera Software, in Vietnam,
67 percent of people connecting to the internet with mobile devices are using
Opera Mini browser, while 15 percent are using the Nokia’s browser.

On average,
each person using Opera, uses 6MB of data and reads 237 websites a month,
mostly news sites, domestic online
newspapers, Google searches, entertainment clips on YouTube. Vietnam is now
ranking the 7th among the top 10 countries that use Opera Mini.

Impressed
by what they have found in Vietnam,
the Norwegian company has decided to carry out commercial activities in Vietnam. The
company said it will shake hands with mobile service providers in Vietnam including
Viettel, VinaPhone, MobiFone to provide mobile applications, and soon localize
products for local users.

Nguyen Huu
Hanh, General Director of Yahoo! Vietnam also said the company is now keeping a
keen eye on the market at a time when Vietnam is clearly trying to
develop 3G technology.

According
to Hanh, two years ago, when launching Yahoo! Mobile, there were only 250,000
users. One year later, the figure rose to 1.2 million, and by October 2009,
when 3G network was launched, the services attracted 4.1 million users

Source: Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon