VietNamNet Bridge – Viettel has become the first mobile network operator in Vietnam to target ethnic minority people as it introduced mobile phone packages for this group of customers at a press briefing on Tuesday.

This is the first time that ethnic minorities in Vietnam have been offered mobile services in their own languages. Viettel is the first telecom firm in Vietnam to operate a customer-care switchboard using languages of the ethnic minorities.

Speaking at the press briefing, Nguyen Viet Dung, deputy director of Viettel, informed there are about 12 million people of ethnic minority groups across the country, accounting for 15% of the nation’s population. However, only 25% of them, or three million people, are using mobile services.

“Viettel currently has 56,000 base transceiver stations nationwide. To develop a station in the area inhabited by ethnic minority people, it costs several times higher than normal,” he said. It is because most ethnic people reside in out-of-the-way and remote areas with difficult road access.
According to Viettel, nearly 5,500 communes across the nation mainly depend on agro-forestry-fisheries. Viettel’s mobile phone coverage has reached all communes and border posts.

However, an extensive coverage is not enough to bring telecom services to all ethnic minority peoples. It is necessary to create products with language support for them, said Viettel.

Viettel has designed products for ethnic minority customers with a switchboard providing free inquiry services in the languages of Thai, Tay-Nung, Hmong, Dao, Gia Rai, Khmer and Ede people. In addition, Viettel offers a variety of entertainment services, such as storytelling, farming guidance and music in their mother tongues.

The mobile network operator also provides navigation service to help ethnic minority customers locate themselves in jungles.

Although the switchboard only uses seven languages, 21 ethnic minority groups (60-70% of the ethnic minority population) can understand these languages.

Until now, Viettel has formed customer care switchboards in the northwest region, the Central Highlands, Thai Nguyen, Can Tho and An Giang, said Dung.

After the press briefing, Viettel will organize product promotion events in 40 provinces nationwide.

Dung said Viettel now earned the most from its post-paid packages, about VND200,000-300,000 per subscriber per month. However, the monthly charge for each ethnic minority subscriber will be only some VND60,000.

Source: SGT