All telecom operators in the country have reported big profits in the first nine months of this year.— Photo viettel.vn

HÀ NỘI — All telecom operators in the country have reported big profits in the first nine months of this year.

Telecom service providers VNPT, Viettel, MobiFone, VTC and VietnamPost have posted high growth rates in revenue, profit and state budget contributions, online newspaper ictnews.vn.in reported yesterday.

It quoted Trần Mạnh Hùng, chairman of the Việt Nam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), as saying at a meeting of the information and communications sector in Hà Nội this week that the group’s Jan-Sept profit has met 75 per cent of the plan, reaching VNĐ3,57 trillion (US$166.6 million).

VNPT’s VinaPhone lost two million subscribers over the same period last year as it prevented unregistered SIM cards and pre-activated subscribers, the report said.

Hoàng Sơn, deputy general director of the military-run telecom group Viettel, said group’s revenue for September  reached VNĐ20.1 trillion (US$893.3 million). Viettel  contributed around VNĐ2.9 trillion to the State Budget in the first nine months of the year, he said.

The number of Viettel’s 3G subscribers upgrading to 4G reached nearly seven million, Son added.

Cao Duy Hải, MobiFone general director, said the corporation had signed nearly 700,000 new subscribers in September.

Its after tax profit in the third quarter is estimated at VNĐ760 billion, fulfilling 75.6 per cent of the target assigned by the Ministry of Information and Communications.

Nguyễn Hải Thanh, deputy general director of VietnamPost, said that VietnamPost had earned profits of VNĐ168 billion in Jan­-Sept, meeting 75 per cent of its yearly plan.

Reducing spam

Also at the meeting, VNPT reported that the company blocked 56,000 spam messages in September, or more than 1,800 a day.

It also blocked 713 subscribers last month, at about 25 each day, reported online newspaper baotintuc.vn.

Also in September, Viettel blocked more than 5,000 subscribers, and about five million spam messages.

Meanwhile, MobiFone had blocked 950,000 subscribers this year, as of September 15. The corporation reported that it blocked 47,850 subscribers in the third quarter.

The three largest operators, VinaPhone, Viettel and MobiFone, have all said they have invested significantly in spam filtering systems.

Minister of Information and Communications Trương Minh Tuấn has directed the Việt Nam Telecommunications Authority to co-ordinate with related agencies to study feasible economic and technical plans to minimise spam and junk calls.

Viettel, VNPT, MobiFone, Vietnamobile and Gtel had signed a commitment to block spam on May 11 last year. The agreement took effect on July 1 this year. — VNS