Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam’srevenue from information and communication technology in 2016 reached nearly 68billion USD, posting an 11.49 percent year-on-year increase.

The figures were announced at aceremony held in Hanoi on September 19 on the publication of Vietnam’s 2016White Book on Information and Communication Technology (ICT).  The annualpublication, issued for the past eight years, provides official information anddata on the ICT sector. This year’s edition provided data on 12 areas,including IT application, information safety, telecommunications andbroadcasting.

Speaking at the releaseceremony, Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan saidthe White Book would help not only Vietnamese people but foreign investors gainan overview of Vietnam’s ICT situation, spurring investment.

“With the fast steps in ICTdevelopment in the past few years, Vietnam has had a high position in theworld’s map of IT services and software outsourcing,” Tuan said. “Last year, ittook the first position in the economic index using mobile applications amongsix ASEAN countries.”

The book also said in the 2015-16period, 14 new policies were promulgated, contributing to the development of acomplete legal framework on ICT. The Law on Information Security was alsopromulgated on November 19th 2015.

In the telecom sector, after thepilot period, the three big telecom providers of Viettel, VinaPhone andMobiFone were officially granted licence to establish and provide fourthgeneration (4G) LTE services in October 2016. The country’s telecom markettherefore has been seen positive competition.

Last year, the country had 79telecom companies with total revenue of 136.5 trillion VND (6.16 billion USD),representing a 1.6 percent  increase fromthe previous year.

The total number of operatingmobile phone subscribers in 2016 was around 128 million, including 36.2 millionof broadband subscribers.

IT has become one of economicsectors with a rapid and sustainable growth rate, bringing high revenue andexport value and contributing to the country’s GDP.

Revenue from the hardwareindustry was 58.8 billion USD, software 3 billion USD, digital content 739 millionUSD and ICT services 5 billion USD.

Vietnam earned 60.8 billion USD fromexports of IT products last year, contributing 34.3 trillion VND (1.5 billionUSD) to the State budget.

In the area oftelecommunications, Viettel is the largest company with 46.7 percent  of market share of 2G and 3G mobilephonesubscribers. It was followed by MobiFone with 26.1 percent , VinaPhone 22.2 percent, Vietnammobile 2.9 percent  and Gtel 2.1percent .

The White Book will bepublished both in Vietnamese and English versions in October.-VNA