Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) issued the country’s fifth 4G licence to Vietnamobile, the fourth largest mobile operator, which is a joint venture between Hanoi Telecom and Hong Kong-based Hutchison Asia Telecom.

Vietnamobile, with nearly 5 million subscribers giving it a 3.5 per cent market share, is yet to reveal its strategy for building out its 4G network, Vietnamnet reported. The news portal said Hutchison Asia Telecom will continue to invest heavily to increase Vietnamobile’s competitiveness in the market.

MIC issued 4G licences in the 1.8GHz band to four mobile operators in October 2016: Viettel, Vinaphone, Mobifone and Gtel. The three largest players have all rolled out 4G services, but GTel, with just 3.9 million mobile subscribers, is yet to announce when it will build out its network.

Market leader Viettel officially launched 4G service across the country in April, claiming 95 per cent population coverage. The military-run operator, with 53 million subscribers and a 36 per cent market share, said it deployed 36,000 LTE base stations in six months.

GSMA Intelligence figures show Vietnam operators had 1.12 million 4G subs in total at end-September: Viettel led with about 600,000.