Vietnam - growth of CDMA2000

CDMA2000 Subscribership Accelerating in Vietnam, Up 230 Percent in 2007

The CDMA Development Group (CDG) today announced that CDMA2000(r) subscribership has seen rapid growth in Vietnam, increasing by more than 230 percent in 2007. The availability of affordable handsets and the proliferation of dynamic new services enabled by EV-DO have made Vietnam's two major CDMA operators, S-Telecom (S-Fone) and EVN Telecom (E-Com/E-Phone/E-Mobile), leaders in the region's competitive wireless telecommunications market.

From the end of 2006 to the end of 2007, CDMA subscribers grew from 1.9 million to 6.3 million. This impressive growth rate is expected to continue at its current pace, increasing to 10.5 million users by the end of 2008 and 15.5 million users by the end of 2009(1). On the whole, the greater Asia-Pacific region is host to 49% of the world's CDMA2000 deployments.

"The CDG is pleased by the remarkable growth of CDMA in Vietnam, showcasing the range of service capability CDMA2000 enables which allows emerging-market CDMA operators to thrive," said Dr. Chungming An, the CDG's vice president of Southeast Asia and Greater China. "In addition, the evolution path to EV-DO Revisions A and B gives operators the ability to scale their network capacity incrementally based on market demand, an exceptional long-term competitive advantage that will ensure the continued steady growth of CDMA2000 in the region."

S-Fone, Vietnam's first CDMA network, has witnessed notable success due to its investment from SK Telecom. With mobile and WLL services available in all 64 of Vietnam's provinces, S-Fone's CDMA2000 network currently serves 3.7 million subscribers, making it Vietnam's largest CDMA operator. Having launched its high-speed EV-DO broadband network in five major cities, the operator is well on its way to expanding multi-megabit-per-second broadband access to Vietnam's untapped marketplace, where only 3 million out of the 85 million residents have broadband access to the Internet. In addition to providing Internet access to hospitals and schools, S-Phone will be providing world-class broadband connectivity to Vietnam's highly coveted enterprise customers and its growing number of small- and medium-sized businesses.

In 2005 EVN Telecom launched its CDMA2000 1X network in the 450MHz band and is now serving more than 2.7 million subscribers, making it the largest CDMA450 network outside of China. EVN is focused on promoting its post-paid WLL service to the more than 78 million households in nationwide that don't have access to a traditional fixed-line telephone service. Like S-Fone, the operator is also upgrading its CDMA450 network to EV-DO to provide the citizens and businesses of Vietnam with advanced broadband data services.

Optimistic about the prospects in 2008, Dr. An noted, "CDMA2000 Mobile Broadband services can boost economic growth and create more jobs in Vietnam by narrowing the digital divide between those who have access to high-speed Internet services and those who do not."