Mobile Network Experience Report Vietnam March 2021

Vietnam

Mobile Network Experience Report
March 2021

Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumer mobile experience. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.

Author
Sam Fenwick Senior Analyst

Key Findings

Viettel Mobile remains the operator to beat

In all of our reports on the Vietnamese Mobile Network Experience, Viettel Mobile has come away with the lion’s share of awards and this report is no exception. The operator wins six out of seven awards, including those for our three experiential metrics (Video Experience, Games Experience and Voice App Experience), Download Speed Experience, 4G Availability and 4G Coverage Experience, However, Viettel Mobile’s haul is smaller than in our last report, as it is no longer the joint winner for Upload Speed Experience — MobiFone is the new outright winner for this award.

MobiFone wins the Upload Speed Experience award outright

In our last report, MobiFone and Viettel Mobile were joint winners for the Upload Speed Experience award, but this time round MobiFone wins it outright. This is due to a 1.6 Mbps (17.9%) increase in the average upload speeds observed by our MobiFone users and a 0.5 Mbps (5.2%) decline in Viettel Mobile’s score. MobiFone leads by 2.1 Mbps with a score of 10.8 Mbps, with Viettel Mobile in second place with 8.6 Mbps, followed by Vinaphone with 8 Mbps and Vietnamobile some way behind with a score of 1.8 Mbps.

Vinaphone users see the largest increase in their average download speeds

While Viettel Mobile remains the winner of the Download Speed Experience award, Vinaphone is hot on its heels. The latter has seen its score rise by an impressive 4.2 Mbps (19%), while Viettel Mobile’s increased by a more modest but still respectable 0.9 Mbps (3.3%). As a consequence, while Viettel Mobile commanded a lead of at least 4.6 Mbps in our last report, this has dropped to 1.3 Mbps. Meanwhile, MobiFone and Vietnamobile’s scores rose by 1 Mbps and 0.2 Mbps, respectively.

Vinaphone and MobiFone join Viettel Mobile in the Good category for Voice App Experience

Our Vinaphone and MobiFone users have seen their Voice App Experience improve by 2.9 points and 1.8 points since our previous report, taking their scores to 80.8 points and 81 points, respectively, and tipping them into the Good (80-87) category. This means that they share the same rating as the award winner Viettel Mobile. A Good Voice App Experience indicates that many users were satisfied. Minor quality impairments were experienced by some users. For example, sometimes the background was not quite clear. Clicking sounds or distortion were very occasionally present. Vietnamobile’s score rose by 1.1 points to 75, which also caused it to move up a category — from Poor (66-74) to Acceptable (74-80). Viettel Mobile’s score rose by 1.7 points to 82.8.

Vietnamobile and Vinaphone make good progress on 4G Availability, but Viettel Mobile’s lead has increased

Since our last report, the proportion of time that our Vietnamobile and Vinaphone users spent connected to 4G has increased by 3 and 2.2 percentage points, respectively. Meanwhile Viettel Mobile — once again the winner of the 4G Availability award — saw its score rise by a more modest 0.2 percentage points. However, as our users on MobiFone (which placed second last time) saw their 4G Availability score drop by 0.6 percentage points, the operator became statistically tied with Vinaphone for second-place and Viettel Mobile’s margin of victory rose from 3.4 percentage points to around 4.2.

Introduction

Vietnam’s operators have made steady progress across the majority of our measures of the mobile experience, with average download speeds increasing by 0.2-4.2 Mbps and our users observing improvements on three out of four operators’ networks in terms of 4G Availability. However, our Vinaphone users were the only ones to see an improvement in their Video Experience since our last report.

More changes are in store for the Vietnamese mobile experience, given that the country’s Ministry of Information and Communications is expecting to approve 5G services in mid 2021. Three of the country’s operators — Vinaphone, MobiFone and Viettel Mobile — have been commercially trialing 5G.

Meanwhile Viettel Mobile has continued its success in terms of real-time multiplayer mobile gaming as it remains the only operator to have won our Games Experience award, which we introduced in our September 2020 report.

Measured on a scale of 0-100, the Games Experience metric quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer mobile games on mobile devices connected to servers located around the world. The approach is built on several years of research quantifying the relationship between technical network parameters and the gaming experience as reported by real mobile users. These parameters include latency (round trip time), jitter (variability of latency) and packet loss (the proportion of data packets that never reach their destination). Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games (such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor) played around the world.

Vietnam’s operators were recently recognised for both their performance in terms of mobile network experience at the global level and for their rate of improvement in this regard in our recent Global Mobile Network Experience Awards 2021 report. Viettel Mobile is a Global Leader for Voice App Experience and a Global High Performer for Games Experience, while MobiFone is a Global High Performer for Voice App Experience. In addition, MobiFone, Viettel Mobile and Vietnamobile are Global Rising Stars in one or more categories. MobiFone is a Global Rising Star for Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience and 4G Availability; while Vietnamobile is one for Video Experience and Voice App Experience. Finally, Viettel Mobile is a Global Rising Star for Download Speed Experience.

In this report we examined the mobile network experience of the four nationwide mobile network operators in Vietnam: MobiFone, Vinaphone, Viettel Mobile and Vietnamobile, over a period of 90 days ending January 29, 2021, to see how they fared.

Opensignal Awards Table

Mobile Experience Awards Vietnam
March 2021, Vietnam Report
Video Experience
Games Experience
Voice App Experience
Download Speed Experience
Upload Speed Experience
4G Availability
4G Coverage Experience
Download Image
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
March 2021, Vietnam
Video Experience
Games Experience
Voice App Experience
Download Speed Experience
Upload Speed Experience
4G Availability
4G Coverage Experience
Download Image

Overview

Click on metric labels below for a quick preview
Video Experience
in 0-100 points
MobiFone
69.5
Vietnamobile
48.5
Viettel Mobile
71.5
Vinaphone
69.6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image

National Analysis

Video Experience

Video Experience
in 0-100 points
MobiFone
69.5
Vietnamobile
48.5
Viettel Mobile
71.5
Vinaphone
69.6
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Video Experience
Additional Metrics
in 0-100 points
4G Video Experience
73.0 (± 0.50) 49.9 (± 1.78) 74.1 (± 0.37) 73.8 (± 0.69)
3G Video Experience
60.0 (± 2.08) 46.2 (± 2.53) 57.7 (± 1.58) 54.8 (± 2.69)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Video Experience in 0-100 points
73 (± 0.50)
50 (± 1.78)
74 (± 0.37)
74 (± 0.69)
3G Video Experience in 0-100 points
60 (± 2.08)
46 (± 2.53)
58 (± 1.58)
55 (± 2.69)
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Inc.

Games Experience

Games Experience
in 0-100 points
MobiFone
70.9
Vietnamobile
46.4
Viettel Mobile
74.4
Vinaphone
71.1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Games Experience
Additional Metrics
in 0-100 points
4G Games Experience
76.8 (± 0.67) 52.2 (± 2.07) 78.9 (± 0.37) 77.6 (± 0.56)
3G Games Experience
54.9 (± 2.47) 40.1 (± 1.53) 50.9 (± 2.03) 48.4 (± 2.24)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Games Experience in 0-100 points
77 (± 0.67)
52 (± 2.07)
79 (± 0.37)
78 (± 0.56)
3G Games Experience in 0-100 points
55 (± 2.47)
40 (± 1.53)
51 (± 2.03)
48 (± 2.24)
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Inc.

Voice App Experience

Voice App Experience
in 0-100 points
MobiFone
81.0
Vietnamobile
75.0
Viettel Mobile
82.8
Vinaphone
80.8
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics
in 0-100 points
4G Voice App Experience
82.3 (± 0.29) 76.2 (± 0.86) 83.6 (± 0.17) 82.4 (± 0.28)
3G Voice App Experience
77.4 (± 0.88) 73.0 (± 1.15) 78.5 (± 0.61) 75.4 (± 0.93)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Voice App Experience in 0-100 points
82 (± 0.29)
76 (± 0.86)
84 (± 0.17)
82 (± 0.28)
3G Voice App Experience in 0-100 points
77 (± 0.88)
73 (± 1.15)
78 (± 0.61)
75 (± 0.93)
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Inc.

Download Speed Experience

Download Speed Experience
in Mbps
MobiFone
22.6
Vietnamobile
4.5
Viettel Mobile
27.4
Vinaphone
26.1
07.51522.530
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics
in Mbps
4G Download Speed
27.8 (± 0.52) 4.7 (± 0.20) 31.1 (± 0.36) 31.7 (± 0.61)
3G Download Speed
8.6 (± 0.31) 4.2 (± 0.16) 7.9 (± 0.24) 6.4 (± 0.28)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Download Speed in Mbps
28 (± 0.52)
5 (± 0.20)
31 (± 0.36)
32 (± 0.61)
3G Download Speed in Mbps
9 (± 0.31)
4 (± 0.16)
8 (± 0.24)
6 (± 0.28)
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Inc.

Upload Speed Experience

Upload Speed Experience
in Mbps
MobiFone
10.8
Vietnamobile
1.8
Viettel Mobile
8.6
Vinaphone
8.0
03.757.511.2515
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics
in Mbps
4G Upload Speed
14.0 (± 0.33) 2.1 (± 0.08) 10.0 (± 0.13) 9.9 (± 0.23)
3G Upload Speed
1.8 (± 0.08) 1.3 (± 0.07) 1.7 (± 0.06) 1.5 (± 0.08)
+/- numeric values represent confidence intervals.
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Limited
4G Upload Speed in Mbps
14 (± 0.33)
2 (± 0.08)
10 (± 0.13)
10 (± 0.23)
3G Upload Speed in Mbps
2 (± 0.08)
1 (± 0.07)
2 (± 0.06)
1 (± 0.08)
Mobile Network Experience Report | March 2021 | © Opensignal Inc.

4G Availability

4G Availability
% of time
MobiFone
87.0
Vietnamobile
80.3
Viettel Mobile
91.2
Vinaphone
87.0
023.7547.571.2595
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image

4G Coverage Experience

4G Coverage Experience
in 0-10 points
MobiFone
4.9
Vietnamobile
2.8
Viettel Mobile
8.6
Vinaphone
6.6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The brackets represent confidence intervals.
Download Image
Learn more

Opensignal measures the real-world experience of consumers on mobile networks in the places they live, work and travel.

We continually adapt our methodology to best represent the true experience of smartphone users. Therefore, comparisons of the results to past reports should be considered indicative only.

For every metric we calculate statistical confidence intervals indicated on our graphs. When confidence intervals overlap, our measured results are too close to declare a winner. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple winners.

In our bar graphs we represent confidence intervals as boundaries on either sides of graph bars. In our supporting-metric charts we show confidence intervals as +/- numerical values.

More about Methodology

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For every metric we calculate statistical confidence intervals indicated on our graphs. When confidence intervals overlap, our measured results are too close to declare a winner. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple operator winners.

In our bar graphs we represent confidence intervals as boundaries on either sides of graph bars.

In our supporting-metric charts we show confidence intervals as +/- numerical values.

Why confidence intervals are vital in analyzing mobile network experience