VietNamNet Bridge – Only half of nearly 100 million mobile subscribers in Vietnam are active while the remaining numbers are unused Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) has announced.

According to the MoIC, by early October 2009, Vietnam had 113.5 million fixed and mobile subscribers meaning 132.5 phones per 100 residents. Mobile users account for 86.95 percent of the population.

These inactive numbers were simcards delivered by mobile operators during their promotion campaigns. People only used these numbers to make calls until the accounts were empty.

Viettel reached a record for the number of inactive users in the first half of 2009. At one point only one of every seven simcards sold were active. The ratio for other networks like MobiFone and VinaPhone is one in three and one in four respectively.

Viettel has the highest number of subscribers, followed by MobiFone and VinaPhone. After four years, S-Fone has over 4 million while EVN Telecom, Vietnamobile and Beeline have less than 2 million users.

VietNamNet/VNE