Vietnamese cellco to steer clear of price war

14-05-2015 | Viettel Headlines

Newcomer to the Peruvian mobile market, Vietnamese-owned Bitel has said that it will not get bogged down in a price war with its competitors and will instead focus on introducing new value added services (VAS) for its customers.

Gestion quotes the cellco’s deputy director of marketing Trinh Duc Cuong as saying that Bitel has signed up 400,000 users and is expecting that number to reach 600,000 by the end of the year.

Unlike its rivals, Bitel’s primary target market is the lower-end of the segment and, according to Mr Cuong, 70% of its customers are located in the provinces, rather than the cities.

As noted by TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, the cellco began offering services in July 2014, but did not ‘officially’ launch until October that year, coinciding closely with the relaunch/rebranding of Entel Peru (previously Nextel del Peru).

Commenting on the cellco’s strategy, the official said it would not get involved in a price war, noting that the Peruvian mobile sector is already‘very competitive’ due to the presence of four major competitors. Bitel will instead focus on delivering greater value to its customers and to that end the operator has launched messaging service ‘BChat’ and music platform ‘Dale Play’.