What Bloomberg said about Vietnam’s 5G ambition

Acting chairman of Viettel Group, Mr. Le Dang Dung said Viettel will deploy 5G network based on Ericsson AB equipment in Hanoi and Nokia Oyj technology in Ho Chi Minh City. Viettel’s 5G will use 5G chipset from Qualcomm Inc. and another US company. Viettel used Ericsson and Nokia chips for their 4G network, but now has begun to develop their own devices.

Viettel is the largest market share in Vietnam with about 60 million customers in a country with a population of 96 million.

“We will not work with Huawei at the present time,” said Le Dang Dung in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Hanoi. “Currently there is a bit sensitive to Huawei. There have been reports that using Huawei is not secure. Viettel’s view is that, considering all that information, we should go with security partners. Therefore, we choose Nokia and Ericsson partners from Europe “.

Other Vietnamese operators also seem to be avoiding Huawei. MobiFone is using Samsung Electronics Co.’s equipment. while Vinaphone, has partnered with Nokia to deploy the 5G network, according to local media.

“Right now, I think Huawei is in trouble in Vietnam, because other companies don’t use their devices either,” Dung said.

Not only Vietnam, but other countries are also wary of Huawei, even the largest countries. Trump government is a typical, when it banned Huawei from buying US technology because of national security concerns. The decision to develop 5G without relying on Huawei seems to be an exception in Southeast Asia, as other countries like the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia are opening up to deploy Huawei technology.

But it must be said that Vietnam’s decision is not related to the ban by President Donald Trump: “We decided not to use Huawei, not because of the US ban on Huawei – we just made his own decision, “said Le Dang Dung. “Many other countries, including the United States, have found evidence that using Huawei is not safe for national network security. So we need to be more cautious.”

However, it is not without reason to suspect technology from neighboring China. Government officials once vowed to reconsider the use of Chinese technology in 2016 after cyber attacks on two major airports in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi broke out. That may be caused by a group of hackers from China.

The interview with Mr. Le Dang Dung also revealed some information: Viettel forecasts that revenue in 2019 will increase by 8% -10% to 11 billion USD with pre-tax profit of about 2 billion USD.

Viettel is willing to spend $ 1 billion – $ 2 billion to buy foreign phone companies in countries like the Philippines or Indonesia, although there is no time frame given for that.

Viettel is considering selling its shares in three subsidiaries – Viettel Digital Services (Viettel Digital Services), Viettel (Viettel Enterprise Solutions) and Viettel Media (Viettel Media) – next year.