TMCnet News
Mobile service providers race to lower chargesJun 03, 2009 (Asia Pulse Data Source via COMTEX) -- In response to Viettel sudden announcement of its new mobile phone service charges, another leading telecoms service provider, MobiFone, also declared it would slash its charges by up to 30 percent, on June 3. As a result, the monthly subscription for post-paid service will drop to 49,000 VND from the previous 55,000 VND. Charges for calls on all categories of pre-paid packages such as MobiCard, Mobi4U, MobiQ will also be reduced by between 10-21 percent. With this adjustment, MobiFone for the first time in the history of Vietnam s telecoms industry now offers lower charges than Viettel, with its cost per minute of 10 VND and a monthly subscription fee of 1,000 VND lower than the rates set by the military-run service provider. MobiFone Director Le Ngoc Minh said that with its latest promotion campaign, his company expects to draw an additional 5 million subscribers by the end of the year to increase its total number of subscribers to 40 million. In the race to reduce costs, the power lies in the quality of the services and customers services, Minh said. Not far behind, VinaPhone plans to apply its new charges, equal to MobiFones, from June 5, according to the vice head of VinaPhones Business Department, Pham Ngoc Tu. Viettel started the race on June 1 as it announced its largest ever promotional campaign by cutting service charges by a maximum of 30 percent. As a result, the monthly subscription fee for post-paid users will drop by 9,000 VND to 50,000 VND per month and the costs per minute for calling will drop by 100 VND. Charges for pre-paid calls on all categories, from Economy to Tomato, Ciao, Happy Zone, Daily, and Cha and Con will also be reduced by 10 to 30 percent. The Deputy Director of Viettels Telecom Strategy, Nguyen Viet Dung, said that with about 30 million of the population having no access to mobile phone services, the domestic market still has a lot of potential. According to him, the reduction in costs is to attract more subscribers. Viettels revenues are estimated to drop by 2-3 percent during the first stage of the promotions campaign but are expected to rebound by 5-7 percent once its number of subscribers increases. Returning to the domestic market under the new name of Vietnamobile, HT Mobile also said it would offer charges that are 10-20 percent lower than its competitors. The seventh telecoms service provider in Vietnam, GTel, is scheduled to join the market in the third quarter of this year, offering also lower charges than the others. With seven mobile service providers, including S-Fone and EVN Telecom, Vietnam, by late May, had over 76 million mobile phone subscribers. Viettel dominates the market with about 36 million subscribers, followed by MobiFone and VinaPhone.- |