20 December 2021

Even with Covid-19 pandemic-related mobility restrictions in place, Vietnam’s economy has continued to outperform the rest of the region in 2020 and 2021. Nevertheless, the telecom sector essentially spent most of this period in a holding pattern, focusing on maintaining service throughout the crisis while preparing for some major changes to come in the mobile market in 2022.

Both fixed-line telephony and mobile have experienced small drops in subscriber numbers since the start of the pandemic, but the similarities between the two markets end there. Fixed-line teledensity continued its downwards trajectory towards virtual oblivion, with just 3% penetration (around 3 million subscribers) at the start of 2021. The mobile market has lost about the same number of subscribers since the end of 2019, but has been sitting on much higher penetration levels around 130% for many years.

Sébastien de Rosbo, research manager, BuddeComm

Growth is expected to kick in again in 2022 following the anticipated launch of commercial 5G mobile services along with a range of government-led schemes to move consumers completely off 2G and 3G.

One example is the planned redistribution of GSM/3G bandwidth to LTE. In addition to propelling Vietnam into having one of the most advanced mobile markets in the world, this should also spur on the mobile broadband segment. With a penetration level of just over 70%, mobile broadband has considerable room to grow. Increasing economic prosperity coupled with the latest smartphone technology and networks should see mobile broadband underwriting the country’s telecommunications sector for at least the next few years.

Table 1 – Change in the number of mobile subscribers and penetration – 2011 – 2026

This report includes the regulator’s market data to July 2021, telcos’ financial and operating data updates to June 2021, Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, assessment of the global impact of Covid-19 on the telecoms sector, and other recent market developments.
 
Key developments in 2021

Government plans to shutter GSM and 3G networks, and redistribute spectrum to 4G LTE and 5G services.

Viettel achieves a record data transmission speed of 4.7Gb/s in 5G trials.

Viettel, VNPT, and Mobifone agree to trial 5G network sharing and data roaming.

Viettel develops a national immunisation management platform, while the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) launches a digital vaccine certification system for international visitors and workers.

Reddi becomes Vietnam’s second MVNO, using VNPT’s network.

Chart 1 – Change in the number of mobile subscribers and penetration – 2011 – 2026