VNPay to launch Vietnam’s 3rd mobile virtual network

Digilife Vietnam, part of Vietnamese tech unicorn VNPay, has become the third mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in the tech-savvy country, home to almost 100 million people.

A business license Digilife has secured allows it to operate the network for 10 years, until the end of March 2032.

The first two MVNOs in Vietnam are Indochina Telecom with number prefix 087 and Reddi with 055. Last September, The Sherpa, a subsidiary of Vietnamese conglomerate Masan, bought a 70% stake in Mobicast, the owner of Reddi, to create more synergies for Masan’s “Point of Life” strategy. The scheme is developing a Masan concept of minimarts providing mobile services, banking services, essential products, food, coffee, tea and other beverages under one roof.

Both Indochina Telecom and Reddi use the mobile infrastructure of Vinaphone, a market leader in Vietnam.

The number of Internet subscriptions in the country hit a record last year with nearly 71 million mobile broadband subscriptions and 18.8 million fixed ones, increasing by 4% and 14.6% from 2020, respectively, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications. Internet users account for about two-thirds of the population. Last year, Internet traffic grew more than 40% on 2020.

International Data Corporation (IDC) expects Vietnam’s smartphone market to grow 25% this year, the highest in Southeast Asia, as more consumers switch to devices with faster internet connection.

Smartphone sales in the country grew 11.9% to 15.9 million units in 2021, according to IDC’s Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker this March. This was driven by 4G phones, following a ban on the imports of 2G and 3G mobile phones from July last year, as well as high pent-up demand in the fourth quarter of the year, following pandemic lockdowns in the second and third quarters.

The strong growth in the country’s smartphone market is being driven by continued migration from 2G/3G to 4G/5G mobile phones, IDC said in the report. This adoption would make up more than a quarter of sales in Vietnam as more affordable 5G smartphones enter the market, and telcos move beyond the trial phase into launching commercial 5G services later this year.