Vietnamese Mobile Market Forecast 2003-2010, Full Year 2006

For 3 years from 2003 to 2006, the Vietnamese mobile market has been booming with an incredible compound annual growth rate of 79.7%. In 2003, the number of subscribers was only around 2.76 million, mainly high-income users, but in 2006 mobile services have become accessible even to the low-income users, and the number has increased to 16.02 million. The Vietnamese mobile market continues to expand with the new entrants, EVN Telecom in November 2005 , and HT Mobile in late Q4, 2006.

During 2006, it hit another high record of new subscribers with more than 6 million, increasing the penetration rate from 3.41% in 2003 to 18.98% in 2006. Thanks to the government's reforms, the domestic market is opened for the local players. The entrance of new local players has increased competitiveness in the market, even though it still stays closed to the foreign investors. Cheaper service prices and rapidly expanding coverage have made the market more accessible to the subscribers. Prices have been cut by half in the last 3 years, and are in tendency to be adjusted more, allowing mobile services to penetrate into the low-income population, attracting more potential users.

Therefore, ROA Group forecasts that the number of subscribers could reach as high as 53 million (Active SIM Card Number), reaching at 59.38% of penetration by 2010. Our estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2006 to 2010 is 34.85 %.

Unlike European countries, or Japan, Vietnam embraces both GSM and CDMA technologies. The government has favors for technology trials to make the most of new innovations. Its goal is to spread telecommunications as a main factor for the country's economic development. Receiving huge FDI inflows continuously, the mobile industry in Vietnam is composed of the latest technology. The Next Generation Network (NGN) backbone has been developing since 2001, CDMA 2000 1x EV-DO was already exploited in 2006, and WCDMA is expected to be available in 2007. Mobile Number Portability (MNP) and fixed-mobile substitution are on the government agenda. Thereby, the next few years will witness a rapid expansion of the Vietnamese mobile market not only in terms of subscribers but also in technology and services.

Companies Mentioned:

HT Mobile, EVN Telecom, Mobifone, Vinaphone, Viettel Mobile, S-Telecom, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, BenQ, Lenovo, Panasonic Mobile, LG, AT&T, Hutchison, Nortel, Hanoi Telecom Company, SK Telecom, Comvik, UT Starcom, China Unicom, FPT Group