Vietnam 's economic growth of the last 5 year has boosted needs for telecom services and the State has contributed to this growth by initiating market liberalisation and slowly brining in foreign investors. Vietnam is one of the world's top 10 countries in terms of information and communications technology (ICT) growth and should remain in that list for the next 5 years.The country is currently experiencing enormous growth in all telecom areas, as the government has made a concerted effort to increase the amount of telecom services available. It also plans to invest some VND6.5 trillion (US$411.1 million) toward the development of ICT over the 2006-10 period.

At the end of 2004, the country's telephone penetration rate had soared to 12.3% from 4.3% in 2000. This trend is forecasted to continue in the next 5 years, with a forecasted telephone penetration of 45.3% at the end of 2009. Despite such prosperous forecasts however, Vietnam still only accounts for 0.1% of the world's ICT market.

Vietnam 's fixed market has undergone a steady growth of 21.2% in the last 5 years and this trend should be maintained with the arrival of new fixed players. It is therefore forecasted that the number of fixed lines should more than double from 5.5 million in 2004 to 12.0 million at the end of 2009.

The mobile market was the country's the most dynamic telecom sector with an average growth of 75.5% between 2000 and 2005, and at the end of 2004 the number of mobile subscribers had reached 4.6 million. At that rate, the number of mobile users is forecasted to surpass the number of fixed lines in 2005 and the number of mobile subscribers is forecasted to reach 28.2 million by the end of 2009.

Akin to many other developing countries, Vietnam 's Internet market is greatly underdeveloped. Low PC penetration, poor network development, beyond Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and high interconnection fees are all factors contributing to this situation. The advent of competition and the introduction of broadband have however already started bearing fruits in this sector. In 2004, the number of Internet subscribers grew by 131.3% to reach 2.0 million and the number of users grew to 5.8 million.

                              

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