Viettel, Vietnam’s largest telco, wants to bring international products into Vietnam

In Vietnam, it’s tough to break into the local market with new products. On the legal side, it’s hard to get licenses for specific types of business, to get investment, and to navigate the murky realm of government policy. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t options. How is it that companies like Starbucks, McDonald’s, Samsung, IBM, and Intel are here? These international firms made it work by developing the right relationships. Finding the right partner can go a long way.

Viettel, Vietnam’s largest telco is well aware of that, and is eager to team up with international partners to bring new technology to Vietnam.

Quang Huy, director of new services at Viettel, explains to Tech In Asia, “It’s very hard to bring your products to market in Vietnam, it takes considerable partnerships, logistics, market penetration, and more.” He adds:

At the same time, Vietnam is lacking in innovation. For Viettel, we’re not interested in taking big risks by investing in local startups with untested products. We want to bring established products to market. And Viettel’s willing to put its whole weight behind products we believe could make it big in Vietnam.
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This is significant for two reasons. Viettel, Vietnam’s biggest and richest telco, is not interested in innovation from home. In fact, it finds innovation at home lacking and doesn’t want to take the risk of investing in local entrepreneurs. And second, Viettel is eager to bring foreign tech into Vietnam. This is a big door in for foreign tech firms and entrepreneurs who want to access Vietnam but couldn’t figure it out before.

See: Telco Viettel Looks Beyond Vietnam, Targets 1 Billion Users by 2020

Huy gave several examples of innovations he deemed worthy, like an internet of things tracker for cow grazing and SIM-based automobile tracking. These are the kinds of projects that startups are unable to do, but Viettel can back them with funding or partnership to bring their products to market.

Viettel made $7 billion in revenue in 2013, and has over 40 percent market share of Vietnam’s telco market in terms of subscribers. It is technically under the auspices of the Vietnamese military, and therefore has the ability to build towers in areas across the country where no other telcos can go. This makes Viettel a unique platform for new technologies.

Recently, Viettel has been sending out SMS to promote new services it’s rolling out. This includes online learning, music and video streaming, online banking, and even ecommerce. Some of these new products have not gone smoothly – it is a government institution, after all, and is held back by its own bureaucracy – but Huy is confident in rolling out specific services with technology companies, be it hardware or software.

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