In-app advertising has been overtaking the mobile web channel in Vietnam, with the click-through rate on apps found to be 1.5 times as high as the mobile web click-through rate, according to the Mobile First Insights (MFI) on Vietnam report from Opera Mediaworks released on July 21.

Significantly, app advertising revenue surpassed the mobile web channel by as much as 5.3 times in the country.

“Vietnam is a growing market for app usage and app advertising,” said Mr. Vikas Gulati, Asia’s Managing Director at Opera Mediaworks - a US mobile advertising platform.

“It’s fascinating to see that some trends, such as high usage of games and ads on travel, drive the most engagement in Vietnam.”

“We hope this new report will serve the needs of brands, agencies and publishers alike, and that it will be something that they look forward to every quarter because of the invaluable insights and category best practices that can be applied to their business,” he added.

The quarterly report is designed to help marketers navigate the fast-changing mobile environment and make strategic decisions that will drive real outcomes for their business.

The report found that games was the top mobile app category in Vietnam by ad impressions in March, followed by technology and computing.

Arts and entertainment was third, followed by music, video and media, and news and information.

Ads on sports and health and fitness convert better than other categories in Vietnam while ads on travel drive the most engagement with the highest click-through rate, according to the Opera Mediaworks report.

In addition, ad campaigns running on mobile apps have a higher engagement than mobile web in Vietnam.

The revenue in app from brand and app download advertising was 5.3 times higher than the revenue in mobile web.

The report’s findings also indicate that users in Asia Pacific spend more time on mobile apps.

Mobile users in the region are spending about 46 minutes each on each of these popular apps - longer than the global average of 30 minutes.

The average session length of mobile users in APAC was 9.6 minutes, also longer than the global average of 8.5 minutes.