HANOI, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's online game service is expected to generate revenues of 50 million U.S. dollars in 2007 and 83 million dollars in 2010, according to local newspaper Young People on Monday.

    The number of enterprises specializing in developing games played on computers and mobile phones in Vietnam is expected to increase to 83 in 2010 from current 10, the paper quoted the Vietnam Software Association (Vinasa) as reporting.

    Each of the 83 companies is targeted to have at least one game widely circulated in the domestic market, and reap game revenues of one million dollars in 2010, said the association.

    Now, most of computer games, mainly massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), in the Vietnamese market are imported from South Korea and China.

    To develop the Vietnamese game industry, the Vinasa has put forth four major orientations, namely the establishment of game development groups, cooperation with foreign information technology (IT) giants, construction of game research and development centers, and launch of game-programming contests.

    By late May, Vietnam had roughly 16.18 million Internet users, many of whom were high-speed Internet subscribers, or 19.46 percent of its total population, compared with over 12.9 million users by May 2006 and nearly 7.2 million users by May 2005, according to the Vietnam Internet Network Information Center.

    With over 16 million Internet users, Vietnam ranks the 17th in the world and the 6th in Asia (after China, India, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia) in terms of user number, but only 93rd in the world and the 9th in Asia in terms of percentage of population accessing the Internet.