The Hanoitimes -  The number of smart phone users in Vietnam is expected to rise to 21 percent from the current 16 percent of mobilephone users by this year’s end, according to a recent research by Ericsson Consumer Lab (ECL).Tablet will also see the number of its users increase from 2 percent to 5 percent in the last six months of the year.Along with the rising number of smartphone and tablet users, the research also said local smartphone users will use more mobile apps in the second half of this year, with the number predicted to go from 35 percent to 40 percent.Entertaining, television, video and game services are the current most downloaded apps, according to ECL, o­ne of the world’s leading telecom market researchers.It is also expected that apps related to banking, shopping and tourism will attract more users in the future.Continuous upgrades of network infrastructure and more appropriate pricing policies will maintain the high smartphone growth rate in the country, ECL stated.“Mobile operators in Vietnam should keep pace with the technology developments of smartphones in terms of coverage, transmission speed and stability,” said Jan Wassenius, director of Ericsson Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.