Poor Vietnamese families to get free smartphone

The ministry said that each poor family will be given a smartphone if they have not received one from any other benefactors or charity programs.

The program will give away the smartphone based on the list of poor and near-poor families in each city and province.

In case the families have already bought a smartphone, they will be given VND500,000 ($20).

A family is classified as “poor” when each member has an average monthly income of VND1.5 million for rural area and VND2 million or less for urban area.

The annual Global Mobile Market Report by Newzoo, a trusted source for games and e-sports analytics and market research based in the Netherlands, said that Vietnam, with a population of 96 million, ranked 10th in the world in terms of smartphone users in 2020 with more than 61 million.

According to a global consumer survey by German data portal Statista, about 61.3 million smartphones were in use in Vietnam last year.