Viettel is the telecommunications company gaining highest revenue in 2014. – Photo vneconomy

HA NOI (Biz Hub) – Three major telecommunications service providers, Viettel, the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) and MobiFone, still achieved remarkable growth despite the economic difficulties, Vietnamplus reported.

The information was delivered at a conference discussing the 2015 business plan for telecommunications enterprises. The event was hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communications on December 25.

Viettel is the country's leading telecommunications group with total revenue of VND196,650 billion, or approximately US$9.2 billion. It achieved a year-on-year increase of 20 per cent, which is four per cent higher than its annual plan.

Viettel's pre- and after-tax profit reached VND40,532 billion ($1.9 billion) and VND31,459 billion ($1.48 billion), recording a year-on-year increase of 15 per cent.

The group contributes VND15,434 billion ($726 million) to the state's coffer, which is four per cent higher than its initial plan.

Viettel has 57.4 million subscribers in total, of which 55.5 million are mobile subscribers and 1.9 million are landline users. The figures for subscribers in the foreign market are 17.5 million for mobiles and 815,000 for landlines.

With respect to its infrastructure, Viettel has 63,635 Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) in the country and 19,100 stations abroad.

Following Viettel in terms of profit is VNPT, which reached a total estimated profit of VND6,310 billion (US$297 million) in 2014. This value is three per cent higher than the group's initial plan and is equivalent to the 112 per cent achieved in 2013.

Meanwhile, the group's revenue reached approximately VND101,055 billion ($4.75 billion), which is a four per cent increase compared with its annual plan and is equal to the 106 per cent attained in the previous year.

VNPT's contribution to the state's coffer is estimated to be VND5,850 billion ($275 million).

The number of VNPT subscribers now totals 30.5 million, of which 4.5 million are landline users and the rest are mobile users.

The group's newly registered mobile phone subscribers in 2014 are predicted to reach 8.8 million. Meanwhile, the number of Internet broadband and IPTV subscribers is three million and one million respectively.

At the bottom of the revenue list is MobiFone, which was separated from VNPT in 2014.

MobiFone achieved estimated revenue of VND36,605 billion ($1.7 billion), which is equal to 101.4 per cent of its annual target. However, this amount indicates a 7.3 per cent decrease compared with the previous year.

Nonetheless, its pre-tax profit still reached 100 per cent of the company's annual plan of VND7,300 billion ($343 million), which indicated a year-on-year increase of 5.2 per cent.

MobiFone is expected to contribute VND3,926 billion ($184.7 million) to the state's budget.

The number of MobiFone subscribers stands at 40.2 million, of which 1 million are new customers who registered in 2014.

The company has developed 4,566 2G and 3G BTSs. This brings the total number of BTSs to nearly 34,000 stations. -- VNS