Based on the comparison of theoretical calculations of the point defects formation energy by ab initio method and their concentration by the thermodynamic potentials method with the experimental data of the Hall effect study and the homogeneity region width of zinc and cadmium tellurides, it was shown that in the ZnTe crystals, as in the CdTe crystals, at the chalcogen saturation the dominant defects are cationic vacancies and antistructural chalcogen atoms, whose point symmetry corresponds to the Td group. When both zinc and cadmium tellurides are saturated with the metal, the most probable type of the dominant point defects is the electroneutral chalcogen vacancy, the formation of which is accompanied by the significant relaxation of the nearest atoms and loss of initial symmetry. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.