No more promotion
New policy to fix the mobile market
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VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Trade Promotion Department has asked mobile operators to stop their promotion wars. In particular, future promotions will not be allowed to exceed 50 percent of the value of mobile cards for pre-paid mobile subscribers.
The three largest mobile networks in Vietnam – Viettel, MobiFone and VinaPhone - said they received the document from the Trade Promotion Department. All have just finished their promotional programme in which they gave bonuses worth 100 percent of the value of new mobile cards for pre-paid subscribers. People purchasing phone cards worth 100,000 dong, were receiving 200,000 dong in their account. They plan to launch a new promotional campaign with 50 percent of the value of mobile cards.
“The telecom market is being twisted by promotional campaigns. We have to join the race because we have no other way to develop our market. We know that it is doing more harm than good but none of us dares to stop it,” said an official from a major telecom company.
Starting in 2007, mobile networks have tried to slash charges and simcard prices to attract new subscribers to gain the title “the mobile network with highest number of subscribers”. The Ministry of Information and Communications has realised the harmful effects. The ministry has recently announced plans to replace the title “the mobile network with highest number of subscribers” by the “the mobile network with highest number of post-paid subscribers” in its annual Vietnam ICT Awards.
Vietnam has over 80 million mobile subscribers. Viettel, MobiFone and VinaPhone account for the highest numbers of subscribers. Several years ago, the number of post-paid subscribers accounted for 10-15 percent of the total subscribers but at this moment, it is only 3-5 percent. Meanwhile, post-paid subscribers account for 50 percent of the revenues of mobile operators.
VietNamNet/VNE