Is Vietnam's mobile phone market going to take over China and India?

Vietnam Mobile Telecom Services said Vodafone Group and Singapore Telecommunications are among companies interested in buying shares in the operator when it holds an initial public offering in May or June next year.

About seven companies in Asia and Europe, including France Telecom and operators in Russia and Norway, “expressed interest'' in buying shares of the state-owned mobile services provider known as MobiFone, Managing Director Le Ngoc Minh said. “We will try to hold an initial public offering in either May or June,'' he said.

Vietnam is selling stakes in state-owned companies as part of a two-decade-old reform process known as Doi Moi. Some of these companies will be listed, which would help increase the value of the equity market and make Vietnamese stocks more liquid.

“We are interested in the Vietnam market,'' Andrienne Tho, a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Singapore Telecom said. If a share sale next year “is indeed the case, we would welcome the news.''

Vietnam Post and Telecommunications is the state-owned parent of MobiFone and Vietnam Telecom Services, known as VinaPhone. NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile-phone company, also wants to invest in a Vietnamese operator, said Toshinari Kunieda, senior vice president and managing director of the Tokyo-based operator's global business unit.

“We would like to be an established investor for one of the Vietnamese operators,'' Kunieda said. “The privatization process of MobiFone is now going on, and maybe after that VinaPhone is coming.''

MobiFone plans to increase its subscriber base to 16 million next year, from 10 million currently, according to the Web site of Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communication. The company expects to have a 39 percent market share after the increase.

Will more foreign mobile phone operator invest in vietnam's mobile phone market?