Four Highlights Mobile Trends for Vietnam in 2010

The top four trends that look set to shape the future of mobility in Vietnam are showed by Nokia Siemens Networks at its Barcelona Revisited event held on May 12 at Horizon Hotel, Hanoi.

Accordingly, Move to High Speed Mobile Internet is mentioned as the first trend. Ownership of mobile phones far exceeds that of netbooks, laptops and PCs combined and approximately 1 out of 4 internet users in the world connects via a mobile device.

The wide range of applications and services now available on smart phones and feature phones is expected to create huge traffic growth that is expected to double each year for the foreseeable future. According to Nokia Siemens Networks research, by 2015, annual mobile data traffic will reach 23 Exabytes – equivalent to 6.3 billion people each downloading a digital book every day. This explosion in data traffic puts enormous pressure on CSP networks with traffic growth set to exceed revenue growth unless they invest in the right technology.

Promising to be one of the most important new mobile technology rollouts since original Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) itself, Long Term Evolution (LTE) delivers high speed mobile internet speeds and is set to help bridge the gap between traffic and revenue growth for CSPs. According to Informa, LTE has found unanimous global acceptance by operators in all regions and backgrounds. They describe LTE as the overwhelming choice as the next generation access technology, with over 100 operators globally expressing their intention to deploy LTE and about 10 operators plan to launch in 2010.

Thinking Energy Smart Consumers are also becoming more environmentally savvy when it comes to selecting “green” products. Increasingly, this applies to services consumed. Environmental leadership is therefore an important differentiator for far-sighted CSPs in retaining and attracting new subscribers.

Nokia Siemens Networks research highlights that the biggest environmental impact in the telecoms network is energy consumption. It accounts for around 86% of total energy consumed and up to 30 percent of overall operational costs in developing markets such as Vietnam.

CSPs that invest in energy efficient technologies are not only able to reduce their carbon footprint but, with lowered operational expenditure, they can also expect to see a positive impact on the bottom line.

The foundation of energy efficiency is good network design, which minimizes the number of base station sites and also uses the latest low energy technology. Nokia Siemens Networks Energy Solutions is the industry’s first most comprehensive end-to-end solutions approach that addresses the energy OPEX management and environmental issues

Besides, Nokia Siemens Networks gives the trend of Developing Customer Centric Solutions. CSPs are sitting on a goldmine where terabytes of high quality data about their consumers, such as demographics, location and mobile usage are readily available. However, methods of management and real-time analysis fail to unlock the full value of customer data.

Creating a single, unified view of customer profiles is already a priority for many CSPs. According to research by Nokia Siemens Networks, 87% of mobile operators believe that improving customer insight is a priority for their business and 74% of CSPs said they had moved to a more subscriber-based delivery model in the last 12 months. However, the industry is already evolving beyond this – from profile consolidation to the use of subscriber intelligence.

Vietnam CSPs that can successfully harness customer data stand to monetize on the relationship with the subscriber and capitalize on the potential of a third-party ecosystem. But first they must understand subscriber behaviour to pinpoint opportunities, target and tailor services, and interact effectively with consumers.

Finally, Evolution of Service Provider to Experience Provider shows that a growing number of consumers want services that will enhance their way of life and allow them to communicate with communities via Location Based Services (LBS) and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter on their mobile devices.

Creating greater customer satisfaction will generate higher customer lifetime value. As such, CSPs are beginning to recognize the need to become more than a ‘bit pipe’ to compete. In the next few years the real value for customers looks set to go beyond just simple bandwidth and network speed. CSPs have the opportunity to be an ‘intelligent pipe’ or ‘smart pipe’, opening up subscriber network data for the benefit of consumers via a third party eco-system.

CSPs are uniquely placed to reap the benefits of their business relationship with customers and co-operate with application providers to create new revenue streams.

VCCI

Tags: Vietnam mobile trend, Vietnam Telecom, Vietnam telecom market