MỤC LỤC
Organization of the research report
Introduction
Literature review
Overview of Vietnam mobile phone market
MobiFone and its marketing strategy
Conclusions and Recommendations
The concerns are therefore what advantage over competitors can be achieved; what new opportunities can be identified or created in markets; which products or services should be developed in which markets; and the objectives of the organization for example: long term profitability, market growth or measures of efficiency. Michael Porter identified three generic strategies (cost leadership,. Long-term, simple and agreed. Profound understanding of the. Objective appraisal of resources Effective implementation. differentiation, and focus) that can be implemented at the business unit level to create a competitive advantage and defend against the adverse effects of the five forces.
Despite the decreasing price level for telecommunication services due to increased competition, high inflation will have a negative impact as it is limiting the overall budget for private and business consumption. The separation of families and friends due to people leaving the rural areas generally leads to an increased desire to communicate thus stimulating telecommunication markets.
The separation of families and friends due to people leaving the rural areas generally leads to an increased desire to communicate thus stimulating telecommunication markets. Pakistan), the Vietnam mobile penetration is higher than in its GDP/capita peer group (see Figure 3.8). Although the Vietnamese churn rate level is still below the average of the selected Asian countries, it is with nearly 32.5% still on a very high overall level compared to mature markets overseas.
The road to AFTA of Vietnam is nearly finish, the Government still protect some industry including telecommunication, but after joining AFTA new comers will penetrate the market with huge operation capital, advanced technology, the company will be at front of competition battle. In the new business environment, the company need taking advantages of being first - in - market mobile phone services provider, long time operation and continue providing high quality service. The mobile users now not only use for calling, but they have the desire to share their happy moments, pictures etc, via their handset and to identify themselves by types of mobile phone like in case of automotive.
All most the frequency band are licensed for Viettel (their services have just launched since October 2004), Hanoi telecom and EVN Telecom company of EVN (Vietnam Electricity). Hence, satellite phone systems are expensive to build and far less competitive than conventional mobile systems and there are only a few providers for choice, such as Iridium and Inmarsat. There are differences in the bargaining power among the segments, the ultra-demanding customers are mainly business people as they have relatively high income and thus higher total living expenses.
Equipment manufacturers: provide the infrastructure and handsets to create the network, and are represented by a very limited group of companies to supply the high demand of the industry. Offers are in terms of financial support, service and competence and this differentiation among the vendors increases their bargaining power, which is opposite to the operators. Comparing to other countries with similar economic development, the penetration rate is considered low (Mobile penetration in Vietnam is about 5% in comparison with over 30% of China), implying that the mobile phone industry in Vietnam has a great potential to grow in the future.
Viettel is the second fully integrated telecommunications provider in Vietnam offering the full service portfolio almost equal to VNPT. With aggressive promotions, international partnerships and segment-specific marketing Viettel gained significant market shares in all telco businesses, particularly mobile. In mobile, it is perceived as being both price and quality leader with better coverage than the competitors.
Strengthen Sales and Customer Care Department to increase Customer Satisfaction by a specific percentage each year (vie. annually customer satisfaction survey by market research agency). To complement the description of each offered package, the following Figures 4.2 and 4.3 show the number of subscribers and the development of the subscriber distribution. The development of VMS subscriber data during 2004 to 2008 including net additional number of subscribers, total number of subscribers and average number of subscribers is presented in the table 4.2 and firure 4.7.
Currently, tariff of MobiFone’s products and services are more expensive than its competitors – S-Fone (16% lower than MobiFone) and Viettel (about 5% lower than MobiFone), even with Vinaphone. Although Vinaphone and MobiFone have same tariff plan, Vinaphone prepaid subscribers have to pay from 3% to 5% lower when buying the same card domination in comparison with MobiFone subscribers. In term of sales promotions for new customers, MobiFone have offered several kind of gifts like to add money into customers’ account (prepaid), discount monthly fee or connection fee (postpaid) to lucky draw programs (prepaid and postpaid) over 10 month of one year.
For example, the company has to inform the customers about the sales promotion, persuade customers to buy MobiFone services and to maintain the MobiFone brand awareness in the mind of customers. - Value added services (VAS) are more and more important because according to the market research, there are 90% of customers using VAS and among them there are 91% using short message service (SMS). - Regarding customer satisfaction on MobiFone’s service, through the market research it was found that except network standards, in overall customers are satisfied with MobiFone services.
MobiFone has several tariff packages (include prepaid and postpaid) to meet wide range of customer usage time and all of them are well recognized in market in term of feature, character of brand name. Recommendations to overcome remains will be given in the next chapter in oder to help MobiFone having a more effective and more efficient marketing strategies when doing business in a competitive and dynamic mobile telecom market as Vietnam.
Currently, MobiFone has been providing 4 products MobiFone (post paid monthly payment service plan with 5 tariff packages), MobiCard (Pre-paid base on usage period of scratch card), Mobi4U (Pre-paid base on Daily fee) and MobiPlay (pre- paid base on usage period of Scratch card with SMS and receive calls). Basing on SWOT findings and market research results, the researchers evaluate the consumer’s usage and attitude on MobiFone’s services and recommend the aspects that MobiFone should improve in its marketing strategy in the future. With over teen years operation, MobiFone brand have very brand awareness, but most customer confuse between post-paid name and mother brand name (MobiFone), moreover the brand values and competencies are also not clear.
- Core message: MobiFone represents the best value choice with a combination of great coverage, call quality (quality of coverage), reasonable prices and extensive range of value added services. We can see this through MobiPlay case, this product for young people with SMS function which is most important factor for group from 15 years old to 18 years old to chose services provider, but there not many customers using this product. In Globe - one Philippine mobile phone services provider, value added services contribute 35% of total revenue and most of value added services revenue come from SMS (EMC World Cellular Database).
MobiFone should take prices issue serious, because market research results show that, customers are not satisfied with MobiFone prices while price plays a very important role for them when making decision to choose a mobile phone services provider. Anyways, MobiFone can benefit, in case customers use up free talk time or over, MobiFone benefit base on their volume, if customers do not use all free talk time, MobiFone benefits free talk time of customers. Build up MobiFone brand images MobiFone represents the best value choice with a combination of great coverage, call quality (quality of coverage), reasonable prices and extensive range of value added services.
- Daily subscription fee, call and SMS charges will be automatically deducted from customer’s account balance. - When your account runs out of credit, you have one more day just for receiving calls before two-way communication is blocked. If the existing usage period is more than 92 days at that time, then it will remain valid.
- When the usage period is ended, the subscriber will have 10 more days for incoming calls and topping up.
- Key Purchase Drivers (price, availability, image, coverage etc.) - Other purchase influences (family, friends, card retailers etc.).
Research Approach & Methodology
Among 15,949 projects have successful contacts, only 23 % are current users, 51 % are non intending mobile phone users and about 26 % said to intend to subscribe within the next 12 months. Young segments aging from 15 to 22 currently does not contribute mainly to the current mobile penetration share, however they are the future mobile users which MobiFone should pay attention to in terms of brand and services awareness raising. Also in Phan Thiet and Long Xuyen where Vinaphone clearly dominates brand awareness share, MobiFone is leading brand awareness amongst this segment (15 to 18 - males and females), which is a very good sign.
In mind of potential subscribers – MobiFone and Vinaphone are the only dominant brands for consideration but increasingly S-Fone becomes an eligible comer in the competition battle. - System used by relatives/ friends importance declines with age amongst male and Value added services is not so important for people to chose the mobile phone services provider. - In 8 location of research, MobiFone will gain about 41% of the additional market shares from the new consumers who are willing to buy the mobile phone services within one year, and Vinaphone will gain more about 36%, 18% for S- Fone, 4% for Cityphone and 1 % for Viettel (at time of research Viettel had not yet supplied their services).
- In City market more people chose MobiFone and S-Fone than in provinces market, if we can do the research in 64 provinces the total number of people to chose Vinaphone will be higher. In general, both MobiFone & Vinaphone users are more satisfied with Pre Paid Cards Availability, Network Coverage, and Call Quality than Customer Service. A higher level of likelihood to remain with their current mobile phone services provider amongst MobiFone users is a positive sign and efforts should be pursued to keep churn level it as low as possible.