VietNamNet Bridge - Dao Trung Thanh, a telecommunication expert who has been working in the field for the last 20 years as a strategist for large telecom groups, has predicted eight major tendencies in the telecom market in 2016.

 


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According to the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), Vietnam now has 120.6 million active subscribers, including 5.5 million, or 4.5 percent, post-paid and 115 million prepaid subscribers. There are 36 million 3G subscribers, which account for 30 percent of the total.

Viettel has reported revenue of VND222.7 trillion and profit of VND45.8 trillion for 2015. 

Meanwhile, the figures are VND90 trillion and VND3.28 trillion, respectively, for VNPT, and VND36.9 trillion and VND7.395 trillion for MobiFone.

The total revenue of the three Vietnamese leading telecom groups, about VND360 billion, is estimated to account for 96 percent of the total revenue of VND375 trillion ($16.7 billion).

Vietnam now has 120.6 million active subscribers, including 5.5 million, or 4.5 percent, post-paid and 115 million prepaid subscribers. 

In 2014, the total revenue of three largest network operators reached VND333 trillion (Viettel VND196 trillion, VNPT VND101 trillion and MobiFone VND36 trillion). 

Meanwhile, the figure is estimated to be higher by 8 percent, or VND27 trillion, this year.

1.The telecom market in 2016 would operate a tripodal position, where three leading telcos would still be dominant, despite the impact of the WTO and TPP membership on the telecom market.

However, telcos would bear pressure from OTT services from foreign firms Facebook (Messenger, Whatsapp), Google, Viber, and domestic ones such as Zalo. 

The market revenue is forecast to grow by 8.5 percent per annum.

2.The revenue from voice and SMS services would continue decreasing amid the strong rise of OTT and the shifting of purely telecom exploiters to service & solution exploiters.

3. 4G would be deployed by network operators in a cautious way in large cities and urban areas. However, 2016 would not be the time for a 4G boom, since 4G terminal devices are still expensive.

4. Telecom groups will make hectic preparations for the MNP (mobile number portability) program which they plan to carry out in 2017.

5. The year 2016 will witness Vietnamese telecom groups pay special attention to Customer Care and shift from competing in prices into competing in service quality.

6. IoT (Internet of Things) and M2M (machine to machine) technologies will be deployed in 2016 and see considerable progress. The Vietnamese IoT and M2M market remains at the fledgling stage of development which is full of potential.

7. Telecom groups are believed to carry out projects on big data analytics to learn about customer behaviors and demand so as to make reasonable decisions.

8. Video services (VOD, Video Streaming) will be prioritized in anticipation of 4G utilization. This is the leading service on the basis of 4G LTE technology.


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