Viettel Global lists 2.2 billion shares on UpCOM

Viettel Global started trading on the UpCOM on September 25

September 25, 2018 was the first day of trading for the shares of Viettel Global Investment Joint Stock Company (Viettel Global) on the UpCOM. With the reference price of VND15,000 per share, the company was worth nearly $1.5 billion.

Viettel Global is the mobile information service firm which has the most markets among the firms listed on the UpCOM.

Although Viettel Global is running business in 10 international markets at present, there are only nine markets included in its consolidated business results, including Cambodia, Laos, Haiti, Myanmar, Burundi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Cameroon, and East Timor.

In particular, Peru is the market where Viettel Global achieved the highest revenue and profit this time, but these figures are not included in the consolidated results, stemming from Peruvian regulations that any investment in the country must be reported under the name of Viettel Group.

As stated by Do Manh Hung, general director of Viettel Global, at the listing ceremony, “Viettel Global will make even more radical changes to all of our global operations, with a particular focus on providing more new-generation telecommunications services, combined with information and financial technology.”

Established in late 2007 with the charter capital of VND960 billion ($42.47 million), Viettel Global is in charge of the foreign investments of Military Industry and Telecoms Group (Viettel Group).

By 2017, it served nearly 40 million international customers, representing a 13 per cent growth on-year in customer base, more than four times higher than the world on average of 3 per cent.

Viettel Global’s total consolidated revenue in 2017 saw a sharp growth to VND19.02 trillion ($841.59 million), up 24 per cent on-year. Pre-tax profit reached VND27 billion (equivalent to $1.18 million). These figures show remarkably positive results in the context of high operating costs due to the large investment required in Myanmar and some new African markets that are in the early stage.

In 2018, Viettel Global aims to achieve positive profit even though it only began operations in Myanmar, its largest international market, in June 2018. Customer growth in 2018 is expected to reach 15 per cent compared to 2017.

At the annual general shareholders’ meeting held in mid-June, 2018, the shareholders of Viettel Global voted to increase the chartered capital to VND30.4 trillion ($1.34 billion) by issuing 800 million ordinary shares in a private offering with a reference price of VND10,000 per share (valued at VND8,000 billion or $353.98 million) to Viettel Group.

The entire proceeds will be used to increase the size of working capital to suit the investment needs of Viettel Global's projects until 2020. The share volume will be restricted from transfer for a year from the date of completion.

By the end of June, 2018, Viettel recouped capital in three markets, namely Laos, Cambodia, and East Timor, where it ranked No. 1. Particularly, Myanmar is the largest and most anticipated market in 2018 among Viettel’s nine international markets in terms of growth.

Viettel Group’s overseas investment capital exceeds $2 billion, more than 50 per cent of which was disbursed. A total of $516 million of profit was transferred to Vietnam, accounting for nearly 45 per cent of the investment capital. By 2020, Viettel Global aims to expand its investments to a population of 400-500 million people, becoming one of the world’s 10 largest telecommunications companies.