Viettel to officially launch Mytel in first quarter

Viettel stands ready to launch Mytel

Viettel’s new house record

After one year of constructing the infrastructure of the telecommunication network, in mid-February, Mytel piloted technical calls, including video calls based on 4G long-term evolution (LTE), achieving stable quality and fast speed.

This event marked an important milestone, showing that Mytel is ready to come into official operation, while simultaneously marking a new time record for constructing the infrastructure of Viettel’s foreign branches. Accordingly, it only took Viettel one year to set up its nationwide network in Myanmar.

Mytel is a joint venture company of Viettel Global, Myanmar National Telecom Holding Public Limited (MNTH), and Star High Public Company Limited (Star High). The company has a total investment capital of $2 billion, 49 per cent held by Viettel.

Once Mytel officially comes into operation, it will have 7,000 base transceiver stations (BTSs) nationwide and 30,000 kilometres of optical fibre cables. With the network, Mytel will become the telecommunication service provider having the largest infrastructure network which covers 90 per cent of the country. The firm expects to supply telecommunication services for 95 per cent of Myanmar’s population within the next three years.

Previously, Le Dang Dung, vice president of Viettel, stated that with the target of building a better infrastructure system than that of competitors at each new overseas market, the group will build the most modern telecommunication infrastructure in Myanmar in a short time.

What is Mytel’s business operation in Myanmar?

A representative of Viettel stated that in the first quarter of this year, it will supply a variety of telecommunication services with the most modern technology, including value-added services, both fixed and mobile telecommunication services, e-wallet, and other information-technology solutions.

It targets to serve between 5-7 million customers after two years of operations.

At present, Myanmar’s telecommunication market is held by three major telecommunication service providers, namely Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication Group (42 per cent market share), Telenor from Norway (35 per cent), and Ooredoo from Qatar (23 per cent).

Viettel has yet to disclose the core market that Mytel will focus on developing, however, there are expectations that Viettel will prioritise rural and remote areas that were ignored by competitors, as well as areas where Viettel achieved massive success in its other overseas markets.

With the launch of Mytel in Myanmar, Viettel marks its 10^th overseas market, along with Cambodia, Laos, Timor Leste, Cameroon, Mozambique, Burundi, Tanzania, Haiti, and Peru.

Every year, Viettel earns $1.5 billion in revenue from these overseas markets and generates 11,000 jobs.

Expanding foreign investment will likely remain Viettel’s key business strategy as the domestic telecommunication market has reached saturation. Viettel is the first and only firm in Vietnam that has an annual revenue in excess of $1 billion from overseas markets.