S-Fone bet $543M on CDMA in Vietnam — GSM had already won

S-Fone launched in July 2003 as Vietnam's first CDMA mobile network, a joint venture between Saigon Postel (SPT) and South Korea's SK Telecom. It was the country's third mobile operator and promised better voice quality and data speeds than the GSM networks already operating. By early 2005 it had 1.5 million subscribers.

But GSM was the global standard, and Vietnamese consumers preferred its cheaper handsets and international roaming. By 2008 S-Fone had grown to 3.1 million subscribers, and its owners announced a $543 million infrastructure investment — but the network never turned a profit. GSM operators Viettel, MobiFone, and VinaPhone used their scale to undercut S-Fone on price and coverage.

SK Telecom exited the joint venture in 2010. Without its Korean partner's capital and technology, S-Fone quickly collapsed. By 2012 its market share had fallen to 0.1%, stores closed, staff were laid off, and the network was shut down. The CDMA license expired unused in 2016 — a $543 million bet on the wrong technology.