Ericsson President and General Director Carl-Henric Svanberg, one of the world’s leading mobile telecommunications companies, is on the Vietnam visit to seek new opportunities.
Vietnam is a very potential telecom market which is home to 65 million mobile phone subscribers by the end of 2008 and has the world's fastest growth, Svanberg said.
With the population of 85 million people, the targeted subscribers of 100 million will be reached by 2010, he added.
Since it arrived in Vietnam 15 years ago, Ericsson has supplied equipment and services to companies involved in the mobile phone industry in Vietnam, he also said.
Ericsson is committed to a long term presence in Vietnam, demonstrated by the fact that the number of local workers employed by the group currently stands at 500, compared to four years ago when that figure was just 50 employees, Svanberg confirmed.
The group has successfully begun the transfer of technology that will enable its Vietnamese partners to roll out 3G technology in the near future, he revealed.
At the meeting with Ericsson president, President Nguyen Minh Triet highlighted the group’s contribution to the local telecom sector and said that attracting investment in technology and telecommunications services is an area of priority for his government and hoped that the group would continue to boost cooperation and, together with its partners, improve telecommunications services in Vietnam to help those in rural areas to have access to the same technologies as in urban areas.
Vietnam had signed up an additional 3.2 million phone subscribers in January 2009, an increase of over 160 per cent on year, brining the total figure of subscribers to 82.6 million at the end of January 2009, including nearly 49 million belonging to the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT).
There are seven mobile networks in Vietnam namely VinaPhone, MobiFone and Viettel S-Fone, EVN Telecom, HT Mobile and GTel. (Local sources)
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