Having US$400,000 to spare in Vietnam leaves one with an abundance of spending options – high-rise apartments, luxury cars, or simply a SIM card with a lucky number.

One Vietnamese in particular chose the final option, spending VND9 billion ($400,000) on a SIM card connected to the ‘prosperity’ number 0977777777, online newspaper VnExpress has reported.

In Sino-Vietnamese, the number ‘seven’ (or thất) has a close pronunciation to the word ‘prosperity’ (phất). Using that theory, eight seven’s means eight times prosperity, at least according to Quang.

Quang, the owner of a telecom store in Ho Chi Minh City, bought the SIM card from Do Trong Hieu, director of Me Linh Commerce and Service Company, to be used as his store’s hotline number.

“It’s a rare SIM card, with the eight seven’s bearing the meaning of abundant luck, fortune, and prosperity for the owner,” Hieu explained, adding that he himself had bought the SIM for billions of VND from a wealthy man in the northern province of Bac Ninh.

Quang considers himself a SIM enthusiast, having previously owned another SIM card with seven nine’s, which he later sold to a friend.

“It’s my personal hobby to own SIM cards with beautiful numbers, as long as they’re reasonably priced,” Quang explained.

Quang’s new hotline number was indeed reasonably priced compared to another recent SIM deal in Vietnam, when model Ngoc Trinh, infamously known as the country’s ‘lingerie queen,’ paid VND15 billion ($670,000) for a lucky SIM card she said would be sold at a charity fundraiser.

Owning a unique phone number is a common hobby in Vietnam, with mobile users often flooded with SMS advertisements selling unique, or ‘beautiful’, number combinations.

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