HANOI, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's flag carrier Vietnam Airlines earned some 743 billion Vietnamese dong (32.88 million U.S. dollars) in net profit in the first quarter of 2017, down 39 percent year-on-year.

The company explained the profit decrease was due to relatively higher petrol price in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, leading to higher operation cost of its flights.

Besides, foreign exchange rate did not wildly fluctuate as it used to be in 2016, lowering the national carrier's financial profit from the last year's level, according to its financial statement released on Wednesday.

Vietnam Airlines earned some 938 million U.S. dollars in revenue in Q1 this year, posting a growth of 12.5 percent year-on-year and successfully maintained its predominant market share of some 61 percent in local market.

In 2016, the company earned a total of 2.58 billion U.S. dollars in revenue and 115 million U.S. dollars in pre-tax profits, which was 1.5 times higher than its profit reported in 2015.