According to a report in the Hanoi Times, the Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications plans to support the production of low-cost smartphones to make them affordable to every citizen and facilitate the deployment of e-government initiatives. Vietnam will launch a universal smartphone program aiming to achieve a smartphone penetration rate of 100%.
The affordable smartphones will only cost about USD 45-50 per piece, thanks to the multiple subsidies. Each phone is given a subsidy of USD 10 paid by telecom carriers, USD 1 for each application paid by developers (there will be 10 basic apps in the phone), and another subsidy from the manufacturer, totaling USD 20 of subsidies per phone.
According to the 2020 global digital survey by We are Social and Hootsuite, around 93% of internet users in Vietnam own smartphones, while internet penetration is around 70% for the country.
(Source: HanoiTimes)
