A kiosk at the Vietnam ICT COMM 2016 in Ha Noi. The three-day exhibition of products and technology in Viet Nam's telecommunication, IT and communication sectors ends today. — Photo hanoimoi.com.vn

This information was released by Nguyen Thanh Tuyen of the Ministry of Information and Communications at a seminar on Smart Society — a part of the Vietnam ICT COMM 2016 which began in Ha Noi on Wednesday and will conclude today.

 Tuyen said with total revenue of $49.5 billion, the information technology sector posted a growth rate of nearly 15 per cent against 2014. Particularly, in 2015, the ICT sector became the one making large contributions to the State budget with a tax collection of VND82.3 trillion ($3.68 billion) accounting for 10 per cent of the State budget collection.

Tuyen acknowledged that in 2015, IT continued to grow due to the recovery of local and export markets and IT outsourcing sector as well.

He noted that despite economic turmoil, the electronics sector continued its growth with estimated revenue of over $46 billion, posting a growth rate of 16 per cent.

Retail sales of electronic hardware devices remained stable despite slow sales in the segment of PCs and tables. The Vietnamese laptop market grew only 2.4 per cent in quantity and saw a modest growth in value against 2014.

Tuyen also attributed the decline in the software sector to the global economic turmoil between 2011 and 2015, while noting that in 2015, the domestic software industry posted revenue of $16 billion, growing 9 per cent.

As for the digital content sector, last year this sector saw stable growth posting a revenue of $1.5 billion or 10 per cent year-on-year, Tuyen said.

Revenue from online mobile games stood at $107 million or equivalent to VND2.4 trillion with the number of smartphones rising from 12.6 million users in 2014 to 13.3 million users in 2015. The country has 76 licensed enterprises, providing online mobile games services.

In addition, there are approximately 200 licensed social networking and Facebook users already reached 35 million, accounting for one-third of the population as of December, 2015.

Booming e-commerce

Le Thi Ha from Vietnam E-Commerce and Information Technology Agency (Vecita) told participants that application in e-commerce saw a boom between 2010 and 2015.

Today, about 62 per cent of Internet users are engaged in online shopping. In 2015, a Vietnamese spent about $160 per year, bringing more than $4 billion in revenue. This figure was expected to reach $10 billion by 2020 with average spending of $350 per person per year. It is equivalent to 5 per cent of total retail sales in the country.

Nowadays, more than 20,000 businesses have their own websites, accounting for 45 per cent of businesses in the nation. About 18 per cent have mobile sales applications.

Viet Nam has targeted to become a strong ICT country by 2020 and to use technology to drive competiveness and national economic growth. And it has the ambition to be among the fastest growing ICT countries in the world ranked by International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

To achieve this target, ICT businesses have made the effort to develop ICT infrastructure and boost IT applications in daily life and economic development.

Pham Duc Nghiem from the Ministry of Science and Technology said the Government had offered a lot of support for ICT enterprises and conducted certain incentives. —  VNS