Analysis of Consumer Trends in the Telecommunications Markets of Russia and Vietnam

By way of descriptive and comparative analysis, the subscriber bases and revenues of television, fixed and mobile telephony, and fixed and mobile broadband segments of the Russian and Vietnamese telecommunications markets for the period of 2015-2019 were analysed. The results of the study revealed similar global trends in the telecommunications markets of Russia and Vietnam. Fixed and mobile telephony revenues are declining, since customers prefer new communication technologies to the old ones. The television subscriber base is growing in both countries; TV revenues are increasing in the Russian market and somewhat declining in the Vietnamese telecommunications market. With further penetration of broadband, more customers are upgrading their television from Free TV to Pay TV (IPTV and OTT services). The results of the study confirmed the global consumer trends in telecommunications markets and the applicability of approaches used herein for other countries.

Age-based Marketing Practices and Young People as Economic Actors in the Mobile Telephony Market in Provincial Vietnam

In this article, I conduct an analysis of age-based marketing strategies employed by network providers and present insights obtained from mobile phone history interviews with young people in provincial Vietnam. From these data I argue that young people are a perpetual demographic market frontier in the commercialized mobile media landscape of Southeast Asia. I indicate how network providers contribute to shaping contemporary childhood and youth with their age-based marketing strategies. However, young people’s navigation of the commercial terrain of competing network providers is not determined by commercial forces solely but is also informed by various non-economic factors. This article finds that an appreciation of young people as consumers in the mobile phone era requires appreciating the powerful influence of network providers as well as the multiple relationships in which their economic decision-making is embedded.

Challenges of IoT Deployment in the Context of Developing Countries

The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is not exactly a novelty, even if it has not burst out yet with all the force that the market expected. The 5th generation of mobile telephony (5G) is rushing to deploy in the midst of a real trade war, and intends to get one’s own way on this and others fronts. This paper analyses how to overcome the challenges of an IoT deployment, which can be too complex to fulfil its promise of massification and ubiquity. This analysis is primarily intended to identify whether 5G will be the key to a current IoT deployment in all contexts, or whether it is wise to pursue other development paths first.

Mobile Telephony in Emerging Markets: The Importance of Dual-SIM Phones

A substantial share of customers in emerging markets use dual-SIM phones and subscribe to two mobile networks. A primary motive for so called multi-simming is to take advantage of cheap on-net services from both networks. In our modelling effort, we augment the seminal model of competing telephone networks á la Laffont, Rey and Tirole (1998b) by a segment of flexible price hunters that may choose to multi-sim. According to our findings, in equilibrium, the networks set a high off-net price in the linear tariffs to achieve segmentation. This induces the price hunters to multi-sim. We show that increased deployment of dual-SIM phones may induce a mixing equilibrium with high expected on-net prices. Thus, somewhat paradoxically, deployment of a technology that increases substitutability, and thereby competition, may end up raising prices.