Hanoi (VNA) ❀- 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 340 trillion VND (15.1 billion USD) and profit at 56 trillion VND (2.5 billion USD), while contributing over 46.9 trillion VND (2.1 billion USD) to the State budget. Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) expected to reach a total profit of 3.3 trillion VND (147 million USD), exceeding the group's target by 12 percent and growing 20 percent compared to 2014. In particular, profit of the group's telecommunications and IT sector hit 3.1 trillion VND (136 million USD), up 21.7 percent over the previous year. Total revenue of the group was expected to reach 89.1 trillion VND (4 billion USD), increasing 7.5 percent compared with 2014. Of this, revenue of the telecommunications and IT sector reached 80.8 trillion VND (3.6 billion USD), a year-on-year increase of 8.3 percent. 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 percent the target set for 2015 and saw a growth of 54 percent compared to 2014. The corporation's revenue was expected to hit 36.9 trillion VND (1.7 billion USD), growing 8.3 percent year over year, while profit was estimated at 7.4 trillion VND (329 million USD), increasing 1.1 percent. Meanwhile, Viettel Group reported a revenue of 222.7 trillion VND (9.9 billion USD), fulfilling 96 percent of the group's target, up 13 percent compared to 2014. Its profits reached 45.8 trillion VND (2.04 billion USD) in 2015, up 8.5 percent year-on-year. The network provider saw an increase of six million new subscribers and contributed 37.3 trillion VND (1.6 billion USD) to the State budget, up 44 percent 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 10 trillion VND (442 million USD), contributing 177 billion VND (7.8 million USD) 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 percent of the country's population and 94 percent 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.-VNA