HCM CITY — Viettel Group has announced it will focus on data and new digital services as its new company in Myanmar, Mytel, begins operations on June 9.

Its motto would be DATA, the company said, standing for D-igital & new services, A-dvanced technology, T-rustworthy, A-ffordable & various services.

In its first year of operations, Mytel plans to focus investment in infrastructure, setting up more than 7,000 4G base transceiver stations (BTSs) and laying over 30,000km of fibre-optic cable.

Mytel is Myanmar’s fourth mobile phone network after State-owned MPT, which has a 42 per cent market share, Telenor (Norway), which has 35 per cent, and Ooredoo (Qatar), which has 23 per cent.

But when it launches operations, Mytel will be the first mobile network in Myanmar to simultaneously provide 4G services nation-wide.

The others first entered big cities before expanding to smaller cities and rural areas.

In the beginning, Mytel will provide calling and texting services at 50 per cent of current market rates and data at 37 per cent below market rates.

Calling, to be offered from June 9, will be billed in 1-second blocks instead of the 15- and 20-second blocks by other operators.

As an inaugural promotion, Mytel will offer the Mite Tal (meaning “super cool” in Burmese) strategic fee package.

For 4,000 Myanmarese kyats (US$3), subscribers will get 5GB and 250 minutes of calling within the Mytel network for 30 days.

But as an introductory offer, on top of this, the company is providing for free 1.5GB and 150 minutes of calling for three months, 100 per cent bonus on top-up value and call billing in 1-second blocks after the free calls are used up.

Lê Đăng Dũng, Viettel’s deputy general director, said while Myanmar has experienced rapid economic growth, mobile phone penetration remains low, creating opportunities for telecom operators, especially Viettel.

“We are targeting two to three million customers in Myanmar in 2018.”

Mytel is the brand name of Telecom International Myanmar, a joint venture between Viettel and two local partners, Star High Public Company and Myanmar National Telecom Holding Public.

Mytel has invested $1.5 billion, accounting for 66 per cent of all Vietnamese investment in Myanmar.

With the project, Việt Nam jumps from 10th place to seventh among the 49 countries and territories investing in Myanmar, and is the second largest ASEAN investor.

Myanmar has been Viettel’s foreign market with the highest economic growth rate, at 7 per cent so far and largest number of population with 53 million.

It also has high growth in the telecommunications and IT sector.

From having with the lowest mobile phone usage rate in the world (higher only North Korea), Myanmar has experienced a stunning mobile phone SIM usage per capita growth from 10 per cent to 90 per cent after only three years of opening its economy.

The total number of subscribers has risen from 600,000 to over 16 million.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Myanmar could increase its economy’s scale four-fold to $200 billion by 2030.

The IMF also said the finance, banking, energy, telecommunications and IT sectors offer the most opportunities for foreign investors in terms of both market potential and human resources. — VNS