PANO - Just a few days before the start of the APEC Summit, the Peruvian capital of Lima was covered with 4G of Bitel, the trademark of Viettel, a military-run telecom group of Vietnam, in the country, to serve the summit. The Vietnamese delegation to the 2016 APEC Economic Leaders’ Week, led by Vietnam’s President Tran Dai Quang, were the first clients using 4G provided by Bitel.

As part of the Week, President Quang participated in different activities to  promote  bilateral economic, trade and investment cooperation with other APEC Summit countries and visited several Vietnamese businesses in Peru. One of his destinations was Bitel’s headquarters.

President Tran Dai Quang talking with Viettel's staffs in Peru

Bitel officially started its operation in Peru in October 2014.  Before it, there were three other mobile networks in the country, Spain’s Mivistar which ranked 8th in the world with 325 millions of users and 2nd among telecom companies with overseas investment; Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim’s Claro which was listed 9th in the world with 289 millions of users and 3rd among telecom companies with overseas investment and Chile’s Entel. Mivistar and Claro are also the two leading mobile networks in Latin America.

At Bitel’s headquarters, President Quang spoke highly of Viettel Group’s operation in the country, saying that the group brought along with Uncle Ho’s soldiers’ vanguard to do business overseas. He also highly valued the group in creating an economic source to Vietnam and in boosting socio-economic development in Peru, promoting mutual understanding and friendship between the two countries and peoples.

What makes Bitel, a new mobile network, operate effectively in the country despite tough competitiveness from its world’s strong opponents is the solidarity among its staffers. Viettel Group’s General Director Major General Nguyen Manh Hung said that, just 10 percent of Bitel’s staffers are Vietnamese and the remainders come from Peru, Colombia, and India. If the staffers do not unite, they could not overcome more pressure.

An African proverb hung at Bitel’s headquarters’ entrance reads that “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. With the philosophy of going together, Bitel has gained outstanding achievements. It has earned profits after two years of operation while a foreign business normally takes four to five years to do that.

Bitel now has the largest fiber optic cable of 25,000 kilometers in Peru. It also ranks second in the country in network coverage with 3,500 base transceiver stations. Moreover, it is the only mobile network in the country not serving 2G, just providing 3G and 4G.

Translated by Mai Huong