The number of phone subscribers fell by more than 46 million in just one month, according to the General Department of Statistics.
By late May, the country had 127.8 million phone subscribers, down 46.5 million compared to late April.
The trend is a continuing one. Compared to the same period last year, the number of land-line subscribers had decreased by 5.2%, and mobile phone users fell by 11.8%.
According to the GSO, the decline is due to efforts by the telecom sector to weed out unregistered pre-paid subscribers.
At the Vietnam International Telecommunication Conference 2011, Tran Duc Lai, Deputy Minister of Information and Communication, showed was surprised at the sharp decrease, saying, “I was unaware of this. Even if the removal of unregistered subscribers is factored in, this number seems too high. The ministry will investigate the situation and release an official announcement soon.”
The deputy minister indicated that his ministry will tighten control over pre-paid mobile phone subscribers this year.
At present, the Ministry of Information and Communications and the Ministry of Public Securities are working together to cross-check their databases in order get rid of unregistered accounts.
Hugh Roberts, a speaker at the conference, said, “The number of phone subscribers is much higher than Vietnamese population because it includes many unregistered users. It would better for the country to bring the number of subscribers more in line with the actual population.”
