From a country lagging behind in telecommunications 20 years ago, with one of the lowest mobile phone usage rates in the world , Vietnam has become a telecommunications exporter and one of the few countries to have mastered the entire 5G technology process.
In the context of Vietnam more than 20 years ago, when a one-minute phone call could easily cost two bowls of pho and only 4% of the population used mobile phones, it was hard to imagine that the S-shaped country would become one of the few nations to master and export 5G and have the second-largest telecommunications brand in the world.
“The prestige of Viettel and of the Vietnamese people is growing ever higher. International friends, who already understand us, will understand us even better – the Vietnamese people, Vietnamese culture, and Vietnamese values. Especially for Viettel, as a state-owned enterprise and, even more remarkably, as an enterprise of the military, the army of the heroic Vietnamese people, heroic in combat and now heroic in economic endeavors,” General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong stated during a visit to a Viettel market in 2017.
Viettel ranks second in the world in terms of brand strength in the telecommunications sector. Viettel's Brand Strength Index reached 89.4/100, with an AAA rating – the highest rating.
Viettel not only created a telecommunications boom in Vietnam, but also brought mobile coverage and digital services to people in many countries, even in unstable and difficult circumstances. Viettel even succeeded in countries where the largest telecommunications companies had to withdraw. In 7 out of 10 markets where it invested, Viettel ranked first. This is no longer just "luck," because luck doesn't come often. The miracle Viettel has achieved in foreign markets is proof of the strategy, determination, and creativity of many generations.
“ Viettel’s strategy was to be among the top 10 largest telecommunications operators in the world. Without investing abroad, the Vietnamese market alone wouldn’t be enough; Viettel couldn’t be among the top 10 largest telecommunications operators in the world, ” recalled Lieutenant General Hoang Anh Xuan, former CEO of Viettel Group.
At the end of 2006, Viettel officially entered the Cambodian market, becoming the first telecommunications company to invest directly abroad. At that time, the domestic market share was still vast, and in reality, it was still an attractive opportunity for international investment. Viettel still had outstanding debts for 5,000 base stations that it was struggling to manage.
Lieutenant General Hoang Anh Xuan shares a smile with Cambodian students at the first school in Phnom Penh to receive free internet service from Metfone (Viettel Cambodia).
While possessing a high-quality technical team, Viettel's experience in the telecommunications business is still in its learning phase. A series of obstacles have been raised, demonstrating the inherent risks of venturing into the global market. But Viettel is determined to succeed.
“Cambodia was also very competitive back then, it was fierce. Because when we went to Cambodia, firstly, they didn't give any special incentives to any businesses, especially us foreign investors, with 7-8 businesses competing against each other,” – Major General Hoang Son, former Party Secretary and Deputy General Director of Viettel Group, recalled the reason why Cambodia was chosen as Viettel's first market.
Cambodia is a large country with a sparse population and low population density, making it difficult not only for telecommunications but also for many other sectors such as electricity and water to develop infrastructure in remote areas. However, amidst the crisis lay an opportunity. Recognizing the weakness of most telecommunications providers in Cambodia at that time – the lack of their own infrastructure – Viettel decided to build and control its own telecommunications infrastructure.
Overcoming unprecedented challenges in transporting the first 10 test base stations from Vietnam, Viettel worked day and night, rapidly setting up thousands of stations by combining practical experience from within the country with flexible adaptation to the foreign environment.
Therefore, on its official launch day, more than a year later, February 9, 2009, Metfone – Viettel's international brand in Cambodia – immediately became the provider with the largest telecommunications infrastructure. Two years later, Metfone rose from 8th place to number 1 with 46% mobile market share and 60% fixed broadband market share.
Bakneom is an agricultural village located about an hour's drive from the center of Oddar Meanchey, a border province between Cambodia and Thailand. However, it is one of the areas facing difficulties connecting to the national power grid or water supply network. This is because, with a sparse population of only about 300,000 residents across an area of over 6,000 square kilometers, infrastructure businesses are almost unprofitable. Yet, Bakneom has mobile phone coverage!
"Apart from Metfone, no other network operator has considered providing coverage in this area or other remote regions of the province," said Oddar Meanchey, director of Metfone's branch (Viettel's brand in Cambodia).
Unlike its international competitors, Metfone is willing to "give first," bringing telecommunications coverage to the most remote areas. "Metfone has expanded its coverage to remote areas, even in places where they knew there would be no profit. This makes us feel warm, especially for the military units on the border and in remote areas," said General Samdech Pichey Sena Tea Banh, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense of Cambodia.
In Burundi, Viettel not only rose to become the mobile network operator with the largest market share (Lumitel) in the shortest time (6 months), but also owns the e-wallet with the most users.
Among the countries where Viettel rose to the top of the telecommunications market share fastest, Burundi (Africa) achieved this feat in just six months. In this country, Viettel continues to prioritize a strategy of democratizing mobile services by bringing telecommunications to the entire country and its people. However, the factor that helped Lumitel (Viettel's brand in Burundi) make this leap forward stemmed from events in the African nation.
In May 2015, when political turmoil occurred, other mobile network operators ceased operations and foreign personnel left Burundi, disrupting communication. Meanwhile, Viettel's staff there knew how to control the situation and maintain the mobile network's operation: customers flocked to Lumitel, propelling the latter to the number one position in a very short time.
However, what makes Viettel so different in Burundi is not just its efforts to make telecommunications affordable and its rapid rise to market share. It's its involvement in numerous social activities, supporting vulnerable groups in Burundi, with the use of the Lumicash e-wallet to provide financial assistance to hundreds of thousands of returning refugees being a prime example.
Lumitel has used its network and personnel to support the United Nations in providing humanitarian financial assistance to over 168,000 refugees, with more than $21 million delivered safely and to the right people. Brigitte Mukanga Eno, Head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Burundi, stated: “Without Lumitel and the work of Lumicash, refugee assistance would be incredibly difficult.”
Besides its remarkable achievements in telecommunications growth and adoption in developing countries, Viettel also created a miracle in Peru, a country with a much higher level of development and GDP than Vietnam. There, Viettel won the telecommunications license bid by committing to providing free internet to over 4,000 schools – something no other telecommunications company was willing to do. Upon its launch in 2014, Bitel (Viettel's brand there) was the only mobile network with nationwide 3G coverage.
Viettel brings mobile phone coverage to the far end of the Amazon River basin, to areas that still lack access to the power grid.
Even in a country like Peru, Viettel continues to fulfill its overarching mission: serving people in even the most challenging regions. This includes Cerro de Pasco, a city situated at an altitude of 4,380 meters, one of the highest cities in the world, covered in snow year-round.
The first and almost only feeling most people have when they arrive in Pasco is, "It's impossible to breathe." It's also one of the poorest and most disadvantaged areas in Peru, where the people have never even used a telephone or the internet. However, the arrival of Bitel has changed everything.
Furthermore, in February 2021, despite the complex developments of the Covid-19 pandemic, Bitel completed the installation of four base stations at the end of the Amazon River basin, bringing mobile and internet coverage to the most remote areas there. These were the final stations in the project to provide the deepest and most remote base stations in the Amazon River basin in Peru. Crossing the jungle and the Amazon River to lay fiber optic cables and provide mobile coverage to areas without electricity in the Amazon basin was considered unimaginable for all other network operators in Peru – except Bitel.
"Giving first, receiving later" is the guiding principle for Viettel's sustainable investment strategy, balancing the interests of the business with those of the government and people of the host country. This is what helps Viettel's brands abroad always receive exceptional praise, and is even a crucial factor in helping many subsidiaries reach the number one position in market share in an unprecedented amount of time.
With a fierce competitive spirit and a humane approach to customer engagement, 15 years after launching its first overseas market, Viettel has become a professional international investor, ranking number 1 in 7 out of 10 international markets.
Revenue from foreign investment activities reached over 3 billion USD, maintaining a high growth rate for 7 consecutive years, five times the industry average worldwide, bringing in an annual foreign exchange inflow to Vietnam of up to 500 million USD.
These figures speak volumes about business performance, but also reveal a consistent aspiration and philosophy throughout Viettel's international investments: affirming Vietnam's technological capabilities.
In March 2024, Viettel surprised everyone at the world's largest mobile technology event by introducing its 5G device ecosystem at MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Spain. Accordingly, the Vietnamese technology group unveiled a 5G wireless network equipment ecosystem based on the Open-RAN standard, with 5G core network and 5G chips entirely owned and controlled by Viettel.
Commenting on the event, Dan Rodriguez, General Manager of the Network Platforms Group at Intel, said: “Viettel has achieved a remarkable feat, truly groundbreaking technologies in both the use of Open-RAN and 5G SA cores.”
At MWC 2023, Viettel surprised everyone by unveiling a 5G wireless network equipment ecosystem based on the Open-RAN standard, a 5G core network, and 5G chips that they developed entirely themselves.
Previously, few could believe that a Vietnamese telecommunications company – which originated as a construction company – could successfully manufacture 5G equipment, and even 5G chips. This is something only a few of the world's largest technology corporations have achieved, and no other telecommunications operator besides Viettel has successfully produced them.
Before showcasing its standalone 5G network at MWC, Viettel conducted testing on 300 officially operational 5G base stations across Vietnam (Hanoi, Ha Nam, Da Nang, Ninh Thuan). The results showed that Viettel's 5G equipment fully met the technical specifications according to global standards and Vietnamese regulations. Furthermore, in December 2023, Viettel's complete private 5G system was exported to India, a technologically advanced country with the world's largest population.
In addition to successfully researching and manufacturing hardware devices, mastering the real-time billing system (OCS), the "heart of the network," is another remarkable achievement for Viettel. Prior to 5G devices, this was a feat that surprised international partners, as Viettel was the only telecommunications operator to independently develop its own OCS system.
This corporation not only successfully researched and developed vOCS 3.0 but also became one of the top 3 OCS manufacturers globally in terms of capacity and features. Notably, vOCS has achieved something no other real-time billing system in the world has accomplished: designing a unique pricing plan for each customer.
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| Viettel aims to become a leading chip design company in Asia by 2030 and a key player in the development of the semiconductor industry in Vietnam. |
“Viettel’s development path has progressed from outsourcing, to investing in telecommunications services, to high-tech industries, and the next step is to focus on technology, being present in all stages of the semiconductor industry and being a pioneer in Vietnam’s electronics industry. A country cannot develop without an electronics industry, and Viettel’s mission is to be a key enterprise, making a significant contribution to Vietnam becoming a developed country,” said Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung, Minister of Information and Communications, who held leadership positions at Viettel from its early days.
Network equipment and new 5G chips are just the beginning. Viettel aims to become a high-level chip design company in Asia by 2030 and a key player in the development of the semiconductor industry in Vietnam.
“Viettel remains steadfast in its noble aspirations passed down from generation to generation: to always innovate for the people, to continuously disseminate technology so that no one is left behind as it advances, to be a pioneer and leading force in building a digital society, and to collaborate to create value together,” said Major General Tao Duc Thang, Chairman and CEO of Viettel. The spirit of self-reliance and the willingness to take on the most difficult tasks has helped Viettel achieve many miracles in the past and will continue to be the foundation for its future journey and create new miracles.
Source: https://baodautu.vn/batdongsan/35-nam-viettel-va-nhung-ky-tich-cua-viet-namtren-thi-truong-vien-thong-cong-nghe-the-gioi-d217341.html
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