Vietnamese 3G Market has to Move Diligently to Succeed - Frost & Sullivan

HANOI, Vietnam, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Frost & Sullivan will be returning to Hanoi with the 2nd Annual Vietnam Telecoms Growth Forum on September 14, 2010. Endorsed by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) and co-organized by the National Institute of Information and Communications Strategy (NIICS), the theme of the forum will be, "Maximizing Growth Opportunities in Vietnam". It will be a full-day session that will showcase C-Level dialogues and interactive panel discussions along with stand-alone presentations.  

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With seven operators, the Vietnamese mobile market is one of the top five most competitive markets in this region. Vietnam's mobile connections grew 58% in 2009 and penetration reached 127%. However, recent operator comments suggests that 50% of these connections are inactive and as much 70% of the connections added in 2009 were multi-SIM users.

On the broadband front, the Vietnamese market has seen growth of over 60% in the past 4 years. A subscriber base of 2.1 million in 2008 gave the nation a household broadband penetration rate of 11.9%. The subscriber base is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15.22% from 2004 to 2014 and is forecasted to reach 4.9 million by the end of 2014. While, the household broadband penetration is projected to reach 24.9% by the same period. Consumer broadband revenues are expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.11% from 193 million in 2008 to 449 million in 2014.

Backing all these potential growth and positioning the nation as a forerunner amongst its regional counterparts is the Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC). The recent guidelines placed by the regulator clearly indicates the progress that the nation's telecommunications sector is posed to evolve into.

Of these guidelines, is the rise in foreign investor equity limit from 24.5% to 49%, permitting private telecoms infrastructure and lifting the foreign ownership cap. This move has sent clear signs to the international telecommunications community that the Vietnamese domestic market is eager to raise on par with its international counterparts.

Nitin Bhat, Partner at Frost & Sullivan, commented, "Prepaid still dominates Vietnam's market with 94.5% mobile connections. High multi-SIM usage and SIM churn has been encouraged by SIM usage bundling with users arbitrating promotional rates and service bundling.  Data revenues do not appear to have gained the traction they have in other markets, possibly due to widespread voice credit bundling. The low penetration rate offer the opportunity for growth in internet access over affordable mobile devices and for wireless as it increasingly becomes the preferred mode of broadband access. Growth in this area would significantly increase data's contribution and importance to market revenues."

Nitin further added that Vietnamese operators will have to accelerate 3G traffic appropriately and should rely on Wi-Fi where possible to keep network costs under control.

The day-long forum will further elaborate on the trends and movement forward that the Frost & Sullivan analysts along with leading industry practitioners foresee for this nation. The forum aims to bring together stakeholders in the local telecoms Industry, in particular, those with an eye on the Vietnamese market to network and share their experience, discuss and showcase the opportunities and challenges within this high-potential market.

Topics of discussion include Policies and Priorities for Future Growth in the Vietnamese market, International Analyst Industry Updates: New Business and Service Opportunities in the local telecom industry 4G readiness of the region, Accelerating Telecommunication Industry Growth in Vietnam, Empowering the Smart Automated Society and many others.

For a detailed program agenda and speaker list, please visit http://www.frost-telecomvietnam.com/. To register for the forum email your requests to [email protected].

The summit is co-organized by the National Institute of Information and Communications Strategy (NIICS) and endorsed by the Ministry of Information and Communications of Vietnam (MIC).

Clarity and Convergys are the gold sponsors, Dialogic and SAP are the partner sponsors, while WeDO is the exhibitor sponsor for the forum.

The official newspaper partner for the summit is the Wall Street Journal Asia, ZDNet Asia is the official online media partner, Telecom Asia, Wireless Asia and Telecom & IT are the official media partners while PRNewswire is the official newswire. The Telecom Channel is the official TV Partner. Management Systems Asia is the media partner and Developing Telecoms is the supporting media for the forum.

About Frost & Sullivan

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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan