Movitel, a joint-venture between Vietnam’s military-run telecom provider Viettel and Mozambique’s SPI Invespar company has launched mobile services with the first nine base transceiver stations (BTSs) in Mozambique, a Viettel representative said on Oct. 7.

On Nov. 5 last year, Viettel won a bidding to become the third mobile service operator in Mozambique and pledged to reach a mobile coverage of 80 percent of the African country’s population.

By the end of this year, Movitel plans to put nearly 1,000 BTSs for both 2G and 3G networks into use in 11 cities and provinces nationwide.

Mozambique is the fourth foreign country in which Viettel has invested, after Cambodia, Laos and Haiti. By the first quarter of this year, the country had around 7.7 million mobile phone subscribers, equivalent to almost 30 percent of its population./.