Analysts believe that the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology, or FPT does not have many opportunities to penetrate the telecom market.

FPT and the dream of entering mobile service market

After the “accident” with fixed line services, FPT still keeps ambitious to join the telecom market with mobile services. Sources said that in 2010, FPT tried to seek the permission to run a mobile virtual network (MVN) and provide satellite services. However, no further information has been released so far.

In late 2010, FPT, once again, showed its strong determination to enter the mobile service market with the announcement on purchasing stakes of EVN Telecom.

Nguyen Thanh Nam, former General Director of FPT, revealed that before deciding to purchase EVN Telecom’s stakes, FPT intended to buy S-Fone. Nam said FPT wants to “jump on the bandwagon” because it believes that the telecom market remains large which has room for FPT.

However, when FPT has a new general director – Truong Dinh Anh, it unilaterally announced the withdrawal from EVN Telecom because it has realized that this was not a good affair.

Nevertheless, FPT has never given up the plan to join the telecom market. Several days ago, FPT Chair, Truong Gia Binh confirmed the plan to “attack” the mobile service market. Binh believes that the most feasible solution for FPT is developing broadband telecom market based on LTE technology.

Not many opportunities for FPT

All the roads that can link FPT to the mobile service market prove to be tough.

FPT has got the license from the Ministry of Information and Communication on experimenting LTE technology. However, experts believe that the LTE technology will be commercialized in Vietnam no sooner than 2015. Service providers will have to go through a bid to be able to provide services, while this is really not the advantage of FPT.

Analysts believe that the mobile networks with the high numbers of 2G and 3G subscribers would have more advantages in implementing 4G. Therefore, they have every reason to doubt about the possibility of FPT obtaining a license for 4G. This means that FPT will have to think carefully about the investment efficiency, or it may fall into the “4G trap”.

At present, two mobile networks are still seeking investors, namely EVN Telecom and S-Fone. The two networks are thought to sell stakes only when they get good prices, because they are in big difficulties. However, FPT has shaken head to both networks.

In theory, FPT can think of purchasing Vietnamobile, the fourth biggest mobile network on the market. Everyone knows well that Hutchison, the current owner of Vietnamobile, is keen on making investments in mobile networks for reselling for profits. However, it is still unclear if FPT is financially capable enough to buy the network.

Another scenario has been drawn for FPT that it can cooperate with Hanoi Telecom to take full advantage of the company’s 3G license. However, if the 3G license is really the “chicken that lays golden eggs”, FPT will have to compete with many other rivals to become the partner of the company.

The most feasible scenario for FPT is to wait and hunt for purchasing MobiFone’s stakes as the big giant is going to be equitized. However, the equitization process has made no progress over the last five years.

Recently, the HCM City Stock Exchange released the list of classified enterprises, in which FPT appears in the sector of wholesaling and retailing.

Buu Dien