Hanoi (VNA) - The revenue of Vietnamesenetwork operators has suffered an uncharacteristic low in the first quarter ofthis year due to new legislation reducing top-up promotions for pre-paid subscribersfrom 50 percent to 20 percent. The reduction of the promotion was put intoforce last month.

The country’s three biggest network operatorsreported their business results for the first quarter at a meeting held by theMinistry of Information and Communications last week.

The Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group(VNPT) said that its business plan for the first three months of the year hasmany changes from previous years.

The group has altered promotions for its mobileservices. Whereas before subscribers could claim back 50 percent of their topup in the first three months of the year, that number is now just 20 percent.As a result subscribers are topping up with less enthusiasm than in previousyears and VNPT’s mobile revenue is consequently down from the same period lastyear.

According to a VNPT representative, the decreasein revenue may be due to the fact that in the month leading up to the change inpolicy, top-up cards were sold in large numbers so that subscribers could take advantageof the 50 percent promotion before the new regulation on promotions tookeffect.

As a result, many customers may have purchasedseveral top up cards to save for later, causing a delay in revenue, rather thana dip, a representative of VNPT said.

The group’s consolidated revenues wereequivalent to the same period last year, reaching 24 percent of the year’splan, while its profit increased 5.6 percent, reaching 21.5 percent of theplan.

Meanwhile, the military-run telecom group,Viettel, reported that it had achieved 23.4 percent of the whole year’s revenueplan in the first quarter.

A representative of Viettel said that thecurrent trend in the world of telecom is 3G and 4G data. Applications such asWhatsApp and Zalo are running off of data.

In Vietnam, the price of voice and SMS servicesis down, but the management of 3G and 4G data is not tight enough, as aresult there are some data packages “dumping" the market.

The Viettel representative said that operatorsshould reduce the cost of their voice and SMS services, while increasing thecost of data packages in order to keep up with future trends.

Meanwhile, the MobiFone Corporation reported a year-on-yearincrease of 6.3 percent in revenue in the first quarter of the year.

However, like other mobile operators, MobiFone’svoicing and texting revenues reduced. The corporation’s profit in the first quarterreached 22 percent of the whole year’s plan.-VNA