VietNamNet Bridge – In the last 10 years, Vietnam witnessed the wave of localizing the world’s products to provide to Vietnamese clients. Nowadays, it is entering a new development stage, when Vietnamese service providers follow their own ways.

Experts have pointed out that over the last 10 years, since 2000, most of the Internet products provided in Vietnam were the ones copied from the products in the world market. A lot of prevalent services were brought to Vietnam to serve Vietnamese clients after they succeeded in the international market.

Vietnam spent 10 years to “imitate “the world’s products

Since Vietnamese firms just copied the products in a mechanical and uncreative way, their localized products could not exist for a long time.

While Cyworld.co.kr was very well known in South Korea with 95 percent of people aged of 18-30 being the members, its Vietnamese version – Cyworld.vn – did not succeed in Vietnam. Zing Chat, the Vietnamese version of QQ Chat was another example.

The appearance of online forums and big online newspapers in early 2000 was considered as marking the establishment of the Vietnam’s Internet market. At that time, the most famous forum, which was also an unofficial newspaper, was Tri Tue Vietnam, the predecessor of Trai Tim Vietnam Online, with one million members.

After that, the market witnessed the presence of online newspapers VnExpress.net, vietnamnet.vn and Dantri. This was also the time of news website boom like Yahoo!News or MSN.

Online music and games tendency has succeeded the newspaper and online music. A lot of big music websites such as Yeuamnhac.com and Nhacso.net were launched in 2003.

Meanwhile, in 2004, VinaGame, which is now VNG Group, brought Vo Lam Truyen Ky to Vietnam, the first online game in the market.

The social network boom occurred in the same year with the presence of Yahoo!360o which existed in 2004-2007. After Yahoo!360o closed and Yahoo!Plus failed to inherit Yahoo! 360o, a lot of social networks have been set up.

The period from 2008 to 2011 saw the development of the niche markets. Tinhte.vn has become famous as the playing field for mobile phone and laptop users, webtretho for mothers and children, Otosaigon for cars, and Noi.vn for dating people.

It’s time to go their own ways

After 10 years of development, powerful and experienced groups now think of designing longer term business plans in the Vietnamese market.

The failure of Timnhanh or Cyworld showed that any products, in order to exist in the market, must fit the psychology and consumption behavior of Vietnamese people. It also must be suitable to the business model and the value chain of the governing companies.

Therefore, the word phrase favored now in the market is “business model,” rather than “product.” In terms of business model, VC Corp is a typical example with the wide range of products (55 products in the run, including many products leading the niche markets) and the diversified sources of income (users, advertisers and other sources).

E-commerce has emerged as a promising market with the presence of Rocket Internet, MJ Group, which owes diadiem.com and Nhommua.com, VNG, VC Corp.

While Rocket Internet tries to conquer the market with Zalora (high end fashion) and Lazada (electronics, consumers and cosmetics), MJ Group is trying Zap.vn (selling electronics), VNG is renewing 123mua.vn with a new brand 123.vn, and FPT Online is going to launch Sendo.vn.

Experts believe that the market would be quite different from that in the last 10 years. This would be a big market with many niche markets where specific products designed specifically for Vietnamese people.

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