The Prime Minister approved the proposal submitted by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) to turn the Mobifone limited liability company into the Mobifone Telecommunication Corporation.

The Prime Minister asked the MIC to manage the transformation process and the implementation of the Mobifone equitisation process approved in June this year in Decision 888/QD-TTg on the restructuring plan for the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) for 2011-2015.

According to the national telecommunications development plan for 2020, Mobifone is set to become a large telecommunications corporation, one of the three major mobile services providers Vinaphone, Viettel and Mobifone, which together account for more than 90 percent of the domestic market.

Founded in 1993 as a GSM launcher, MobiFone was the first mobile service provider in Vietnam, followed by Vinaphone in 1996 and Viettel in 2003.

Mobifone and Vinaphone used to be situated under the VNPT umbrella, but in June 2013 Mobifone split from the State-owned Vietnam Post and Telecommunications (VNPT) and was placed under the management of MIC.

According to Vietnam’s White Book on Information Communications Technology, the company held a 21.4 percent market share last year, ahead of State-owned Vinaphone (19.8 percent). Mobifone came second after the military-run giant Viettel, which had the lion’s share of the market at 40.5 percent.

Mobifone recorded 41 trillion VND (1.95 billion USD) in turnover and 6 trillion VND (286 million USD) in profits last year.

The Ho Chi Minh Securities Corporation (HSC) valued Mobifone at approximately 3.4 billion USD, forecasting a possible increase to more than 4 billion USD if the company's revenues and profits continue to rise after its official separation from VNPT.-VNA