Vietnam top listed firm FPT to offer phone services
HANOI - FPT, Vietnam's largest-listed firm, said it has won a license to provide land-line telephone services nationwide as the country's leading information technology firm diversifies business.
FPT Telecom, a subsidiary of FPT, received the license on Thursday and will offer telephone services packed with broadband Internet and IP television to compete with seven operators in the country.
The firm planned to launch the services by next March and expected to gain 100,000 subscribers by June 2007 and another 150,000 by the end of next year when its network expands to 10 of Vietnam's 64 provinces. "FPT Telecom has been providing ADSL broadband Internet services to around 200,000 customers and we will offer the telephone service on the same infrastructure," Truong Dinh Anh, director of FPT's telecom arm, said in the company report.
Revenue growth of Vietnam's telecom sector slowed to nearly 10 percent last year from 40 percent between 2003 and 2004. Only about one-third of Vietnam's 84 million people have telephones, 65 percent of them mobile phones.
FPT became Vietnam's top listed company on Wednesday as its shares soared 150 percent on their official market debut to give the IT, outsourcing and mobile phone franchise firm a $1.5 billion market value.
FPT's debut quadrupled the investment of private equity group Texas Pacific Group and Intel Capital, a unit of Intel Corp. , which bought a combined 10 percent stake in October for $36.5 million.
On Thursday the shares rose its 5 percent daily limit to 420,000 dong ($26), lifting the Vietnam Index to a record high of 757.1 points and the capitalization of the country's main stock market of 67 stocks to $7.9 billion.
FPT, whose full name is the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology, expects profit and sales growth of 40 to 50 percent in 2007 and 2008 due to its booming outsourcing unit. ($1=16,102 dong)
Reuters - December 14, 2006.
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