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| Vinaphone staff help customers register for telecom services. Its total number of mobile subscribers reached 29.7 million in 2015, increasing by 3.3 million compared to the end of 2014. — VNA/VNS Photo Tran Thanh Giang |
HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Vietnamese telecom corporations saw impressive business results in the past year, according to figures from the Ministry of Information and Communications.
Total revenue of the sector was estimated at VND340 trillion (US$15.1 billion) and profit at VND56 trillion ($2.5 billion), while contributing over VND46.9 trillion ($2.1 billion) to the State budget.
Viet Nam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) expected to reach a total profit of VND3.3 trillion ($147 million), exceeding the group's target by 12 per cent and growing 20 per cent compared to 2014.
In particular, profit of the group's telecommunications and IT sector hit VND3.1 trillion ($136 million), up 21.7 per cent over the previous year.
Total revenue of the group was expected to reach VND89.1 trillion ($4 billion), increasing 7.5 per cent compared with 2014.
Of this, revenue of the telecommunications and IT sector reached VND80.8 trillion ($3.6 billion), a year-on-year increase of 8.3 per cent.
VNPT owns VinaPhone, one of the country's leading telecom operators. Other major players include MobiFone and Viettel.
Total telephone subscribers of the group was 33.7 million by the end of last year, of which, mobile subscribers of VinaPhone reached 29.7 million, increasing by 3.3 million subscribers compared to the end of 2014.
MobiFone added 15 million new subscribers, surpassing by 33.6 per cent the target set for 2015 and saw a growth of 54 per cent compared to 2014.
The corporation's revenue was expected to hit VND36.9 trillion ($1.7 billion), growing 8.3 per cent year over year, while profit was estimated at VND7.4 trillion ($329 million), increasing 1.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, Viettel Group reported a revenue of VND222.7 trillion ($9.9 billion), fulfilling 96 per cent of the group's target, up 13 per cent compared to 2014.
Its profits reached VND45.8 trillion ($2.04 billion) in 2015, up 8.5 per cent year-on-year.
The network provider saw an increase of six million new subscribers and contributed VND37.3 trillion ($1.6 billion) to the State budget, up 44 per cent compared with 2014.
Another telecom enterprise with a smaller scale, Hanoi Telecom, said that its Vietnamobile's 2G and 3G mobile subscribers were estimated at nearly 11 million. Its total revenue was estimated at VND10 trillion ($442million), contributing VND177 billion ($7.8 million) to the State coffer.
Earlier, according to a report by the Ministry of Information and Communications, the number of mobile subscribers nationwide declined by nearly 20 million to 122 million subscribers last year.
However, the mobile subscriber density was still high with 140 subscriptions for every 100 people.
In terms of telecommunications network infrastructure, the Internet continued stable operatations.
The number of broadband internet subscribers was estimated at about 7.6 million.
Internet users account for about 52 per cent of the country's population and 94 per cent of the country's area has mobile phone coverage.
Along with strengthening and consolidating the domestic market, Vietnamese telecom businesses also successfully implemented investment projects abroad, focusing on markets of Laos, Cambodia, Peru and Mozambique.
Last year witnessed the transformation and restructuring of many telecom enterprises, especially the two largest mobile operators VNPT VinaPhone and MobiFone.
Following Decision 888 of the Prime Minister on VNPT restructuring, MobiFone was spun off into an independent corporation.
Meanwhile, VNPT also established three new corporations including VNPT – Net, VNPT – VinaPhone and VNPT – Media.
At the end of last year, VNPT had basically completed the restructuring, five years sooner than planned, while MobiFone was boosting the necessary procedures to implement equitisation following the Government's direction.
With this change, the telecommunication market has met national telecommunication planning by 2020, which forms the troika of three to four network providers, creating healthy competitiveness and market sustainability. — VNS