National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân views technologies at Viettel. — Photo courtesy of Viettel

HÀ NỘI — Viettel Group is a strong brand name and it needs to continue to maintain its leading position in Việt Nam’s telecommunication industry and high ranking in the Southeast Asian region as well as Asia.

National Assembly (NA) Chairwoman Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân made the statement during a visit to Viettel on Thursday. Recognising and appreciating the achievements of Viettel, she emphasised that these results have confirmed the important role of State-owned enterprises in the socialist-oriented market economy in Việt Nam.

Viettel is a Vietnamese brand known not only in the country but also around the world. As an economic spearhead, Viettel has been contributing to the nation.

“Viettel needs to continue focusing on research and production activities and become the centre of the hi-tech defence industry complex, laying the foundation for our country to be able to own high-tech equipment and weapons,” she said.

The Chairwoman said that Viettel should strengthen its pioneering role in creating digital life and digital society in Việt Nam. This is both a requirement and the responsibility of the corporation in the role of a technology-leading enterprise.

Viettel has built a digital infrastructure and important solutions for the Government, the National Assembly, ministries and sectors in many important socio-economic fields.

“Viettel needs to continue promoting its pioneering role in creating digital life and digital society in Việt Nam, building Việt Nam with a digital economy and managing the country with digital technology,” she added.

After 30 years of development, Viettel has continuously grown and become one of the economic spearheads, combining defence-security tasks with socio-economic development, as well as creating jobs. It has been an innovative and effective State-owned enterprise.

Last year, the group’s revenue reached VNĐ251.5 trillion (US$10.86 billion), increasing 4,700 times from the year 2000. It posted pre-tax profit of VNĐ39.4 trillion, 27,000 times higher than that of 2000. Viettel contributed VNĐ38 trillion to the State budget in 2019.

In its five-year period of 2015-20, Viettel achieved revenue of VNĐ1.23 quadrillion and profit of VNĐ200 trillion, contributing VNĐ195 trillion to the State budget.

Viettel has been the most valuable brand in Việt Nam and also the leading position in Southeast Asia and 9th in Asia. It took the 28th position out of the world’s 150 most valuable telecoms with a brand value of $5.8 billion.

When joining the telecommunication market, Viettel created opportunities for everyone to have a mobile phone. It created an explosion of broadband internet thanks to 4G coverage of up to 97 per cent of the population.

Viettel has become the largest network operator in Việt Nam with 65 million mobile subscribers, accounting for 54 per cent market share and 5.8 million optical cable internet subscribers, accounting for 41.5 per cent of market share.

It has a super wide band network with 360,000 kilometres of fiber optic cable to most districts and communes; 120,000 base-transceiver stations (BTSs); five storage centres following international standards, leading the data centre market.

Viettel's overseas investment has also prospered after 14 years. It takes the lead in some foreign markets such as Cambodia, Laos, Timor, Burundi, Mozambique and second position in Haiti.

According to the evaluation of the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), Viettel is in the Top 20 largest telecom companies having overseas investment in the world in terms of subscribers with more than 50 million customers.

Viettel has researched, produced and mastered telecom infrastructure, helping ensure information safety and security for Viettel and the nation's network. From 2019, Viettel has focused resources to research and develop 5G BTSs and 5G chip production. — VNS