Viettel has become the only telecommunications enterprise to havesignificant market power (SMP) in land mobile services in terms ofphones, messaging, and the Internet.

This was announced in Circular No. 15 issued by the Ministry of Information and Communications on June 15.

Earlier,in Circular No. 18 that was issued in 2012, the ministry listed threetelecom companies dominating the Vietnamese market, namely Viettel,Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT)'s MobiFone, andVinaPhone.

According to the country's Competition Law, anenterprise is considered to have SMP if its market share is higher than30 percent, or has the ability to restrict competition in the relevantmarket.

At the moment, Viettel enjoys more than 50 percent market share.

FromJune 15, the enterprise has to register with the Department ofTelecommunications for adjusting fees and offer promotions and isallowed to do it only with the department's approval. And they are notpermitted to charge lower than cost prices.

Meanwhile, VinaPhoneand MobiFone have joined telecom firms such as Vietnammobile and GTel,which are not in the dominating group.

These companies canadjust fees and offer promotions without registering with thedepartment. They are not prohibited from charging lower than cost priceseither.

According to the Ministry of Information andCommunications, by the end of 2014, Viettel, the largest mobileoperator, gained more than 197 trillion VND (8.95 trillion USD) inrevenue and had 57.5 million subscribers. MobiFone's revenue was morethan 36.6 trillion VND (1.66 trillion USD), with over 40 millionsubscribers, and VinaPhone had a revenue of more than 25.6 trillion VND(1.16 USD), with over 26 million subscribers.

Viettel joined the local telecom market in October 2000 and after nearly 15 years, it has surpassed others to top the market.-VNA