Companion Chinese deep-dive (Shenzhen Lezhao Electronics): How to choose an international SMS provider
What international SMS actually is
International SMS — also called cross-border SMS — is application-to-person (A2P) messaging delivered to a phone number outside your home market through a local carrier interconnection. It does three jobs, and they are not interchangeable: OTP verification, transactional notification, and marketing reach.
Your signup flow sends a code to a Jakarta number. Forty seconds pass. The user is gone. Nothing in your code was wrong — the route was. That is the entire reason this category exists, and the entire reason provider selection matters more than price per message.
Why it is not "domestic SMS with a country code"
- Sender identity changes. Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia support pre-registered alphanumeric Brandname — the message arrives from "YOURBRAND", not from a strange +84 number. Users open brand senders and ignore unknown digits.
- Carriers multiply. Vietnam alone runs Viettel, VNPT, Mobifone and Vietnamobile; Indonesia runs Telkomsel, Indosat and XL. Each has its own throttling policy, content filter and delivery receipt behaviour.
- Compliance is national, not global. Vietnam's Decree 91/2020 (NĐ-91/2020) requires opt-in and a working unsubscribe path for promotional SMS. Ignore it and the carrier does not merely block a message — it terminates the route.
- Billing units differ. Some providers bill per submitted message, others per delivered (DLR-confirmed). A quote that looks 20% cheaper can cost 20–30% more once failures are counted.
Four criteria that separate a provider from a reseller
One: per-country delivery data. Ask for a DLR report split by country and by carrier. A headline "98% delivery" covering eight markets tells you nothing about the one market you are shipping into.
Two: Brandname registration capability. A Chinese company cannot register a Vietnamese Brandname on its own — a local legal entity must file with the carrier. If your provider cannot do that filing, you will be sending from a random short code forever.
Three: billing transparency. Per message, per country, volume tiers written into the contract, and charging on DLR rather than on submission. Get the failure policy in writing before the first campaign.
Four: local compliance. The provider should be able to tell you which regulation governs promotional SMS in each market it sells — and refuse the traffic that would get your account shut down.
Three message types, three separate routes
Brandname SMS carries marketing and member notifications under your registered brand. In Vietnam, users trust an alphanumeric sender measurably more than an unknown number.
OTP is latency-bound. It runs on a dedicated route because a verification code that arrives in 40 seconds has already cost you the signup.
Transactional notification covers orders, balances and logistics — templated, approved once, delivered in real time.
The rule is simple: one route per use case. Merging OTP into a marketing pipe saves pennies and costs conversions.
Getting started in three steps
Step 1 — Define. Who receives it, what it says, how many per month. Every quote and every route decision starts from those three answers.
Step 2 — Test. Send 500–1,000 real messages and demand the per-country DLR split. "95%+ delivery" is a claim until you have measured it on your own traffic.
Step 3 — Contract and register. Entity, invoice, and a carrier registration record you can point to when something breaks at 2 a.m.
LOCOM international SMS: SMS Brandname / OTP / notification, one API across Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Cambodia and Myanmar; Vietnamese local entity handles compliance filing (Decree 91/2020); from 800 VND per message; B2B contract.
Need a route plan or a quote? Reach us at locom.vn/contact.html.
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FAQ
Where do I get per-country delivery rates?
Ask the provider for a DLR (delivery receipt) report split by country. A provider that only quotes one aggregate number should be treated as unverified.
Is 800 VND per message the price for every country?
That is the Vietnam route entry price. The other seven markets are quoted per country and per monthly volume. There is no global flat rate in cross-border SMS — anyone offering one is hiding the failures.
What do I need to register a Brandname?
Business licence, the brand name and message template, and an authorisation letter. The filing itself must be submitted by a local legal entity to the carrier.
What is the difference between per-submit and per-delivered billing?
Per-submit charges you for failed messages too. Per-DLR charges only for confirmed delivery. On the same headline price the real cost can differ by 20–30%.
Can a Chinese company register a Vietnamese Brandname directly?
No. It must be filed by a Vietnamese legal entity, which is why choosing a provider with a local entity shortens the whole process.