Vietnam: VNPT Likely to Divest Mobile Operator as Regulator Pushes Competition; Mobile Data Thriving

Summary The Vietnamese market rebounded strongly in 2012 after almost coming to a halt in 2011. Mobile voice revenue drove the resurgence, but mobile data is rapidly rising to become the main growth engine, growing at a CAGR of nearly 10%. Broadband Internet and pay-TV will act as the main revenue generators for fixed-line services, expanding at 8% and 13%, respectively. Key Findings The Vietnamese market rebounded strongly in 2012 after almost coming to a halt in 2011. Mobile voice revenue drove the resurgence in 2012, boosting overall service revenue by 25% from its pre-crisis 2010 level, as most people opt to use mobile phones as their primary communication means, rather than fixed-line voice. We project the Vietnamese telecom market will continue to expand at a 3.7% CAGR to reach $10.1bn in 2017, up 20% from its 2012 level. Thanks to Vietnam's relatively young demographics - 70% of the population is younger than 35 years old - the proliferation of data service-enabled feature phones and smartphones, data services, both mobile data and fixed broadband, together with pay-TV will act as growth engines going forward to 2017. We expect mobile data, fixed data and pay-TV to expand revenue at CAGRs of 9.5%, 7.9% and 13.5% respectively, together contributing 44% of overall service revenue in 2017, up from 33% in 2012. Synopsis NA