HANOI, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam earned nearly 30.9 billion U.S. dollars from exporting phones and their components, mainly to the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Southeast Asia, in the first eight months of this year, up 15.7 percent on-year.

Specifically, the value of phones and components exported to the United States climbed up 27.2 percent, to South Korea up 26.4 percent, and to the European Union up 13 percent, the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade said on Tuesday.

Between January and August, Vietnam spent roughly 9.3 billion U.S. dollars importing phones and their components, increasing 4.3 percent over the same period last year.

By the end of June, the country, with a population of some 95 million, had 126.9 million fixed and mobile phone subscribers, including 119.4 million mobile phone ones, said the Vietnam Telecommunications Authority.

Vietnam made total telecommunications revenues of 188.3 trillion Vietnamese dong (nearly 8.2 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of this year, according to the country's General Statistics Office.