Vietnam - 50 millions customers

Vietnam has nearly 50 million mobile service subscribers

The total number of mobile subscribers of the four mobile networks, VinaPhone, MobiFone, Viettel and S-Fone, is over 48 million, according to a survey by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC). Of the figure, over 90% are pre-paid subscribers.

Viettel is the leading network with 19.42 million subscribers, followed by MobiFone with over 13.4 million, VinaPhone 12.1 million and 3.14 million for S-Fone.

MIC’s Telecommunications Department said the figures were calculated based on the client management databases of the four largest mobile networks in Vietnam. Compared to the statistics reported by the four above mobile networks, the figure reported by MIC (48 million) is more accurate.

MCI’s survey also reveals that the CDMA-based network S-Fone has the lowest usage performance, at only 43%. All three GSM-based networks have high usage performances: 76% for Viettel, 74% for Vinaphone and 70% for MobiFone.

Based on their usage performances, MIC will give more network codes to the three GSM networks.

The survey was conducted from May 19-23 to put an end to the trend of all mobile networks announcing that they have the largest number of subscribers.

The Vietnamese telecom market has boomed in recent years. Competition in this market is burning as the number of mobile service providers has reached six. In 2007, Vietnam had 12 million new subscribers, equivalent to the total number of the previous ten years.