Mobile telecom giants look to elders and children

After accessing poor customers such as workers, farmers, pupils, students, the mobile telecommunication giants have continued launching new programmes to attract old customers and children-who are their final targets.

In 2008, Viettel released the package “Father and Children” aiming at the group of customers aged between 7 and 15. The most prominent feature of the package was that any father (mother) could control mobile account consumption of their children and a discount of 30 percent in internal calls between the two subscribers was given. However, after being launched in a certain time, Viettel paused the package for another study whilst the mobile market for children was being ignored.

A source from Viettel said that it is testing a mobile telecom package for children in Hanoi and plans to offer a new version in December. Meanwhile, another giant MobiFone launched a handset-attached telecom package for children, namely Mobikid. The specialised cell phone has four keys with four default phone numbers whereby children can easily press keys to call, without press numbers. The default numbers on cell phone keys will be set by parents.

A representative at MobiFone said: “Factually, the demand of customers aged 5-9 is passive and stemmed from their parents. So, specialised handsets enclosed with Mobikid kit will help parents keep in touch as well as control their children.”

A specialist in deep knowledge of mobile telecommunication unveiled in an interview with VnExpress.net that the launching of such a specialised package for children had the registration right belonging to their parents because registration requires ID card.

Children and teenagers aged 10-15, who do not yet ID card, but are not subject to a group of passive users. They usually purchase preferred packages for teenagers or use pre-paid simcards with available registration, he added.

Also, both MobiFone and VinaPhone offered personal mobile packages with specialised handsets for the elder. The handset has big keys, helping the elder can look and press easily. It also has SOS key for emergency. When the elder presses SOS, their handsets will automatically send an urgent message to default phone numbers.

Both providers said the group of old customers is a new market segment so it is necessary to launch strong promotions with many subsidies.

Compiled statistics showed that till the end of October, total number of registered mobile subscribers in Vietnam reached 150 million in a 86 million population. The register subscriber volume does not inflect real number of users but showed that the country’s mobile market is being saturated. As the mobile giants have to look to old customers and children, which indicated a tense competition in Vietnam’s mobile market, a leader from Ministry of Information and Communication said.

Tags: Vietnam Telecom, Vietnam telecom maket