VietNamNet Bridge - Surveys show big changes in Vietnamese TV viewers’ tastes and hobbies, indicating that OTT TVs will become more popular.

 

An eMarketer survey in six large cities in 2014 showed that the average time spent on watching TV decreased from 140 minutes in 2008 to 124 minutes daily in 2012. 

Meanwhile, the time spent on online connections increased from 44 minutes to 84 minutes.

The “Social, Digital and Mobile Worldwide 2015” report of We Are Social showed that Vietnam has 40 million internet subscribers and 32 mobile internet users, including 20 million who have the habit of watching videos on mobile devices.

Mobile digital TV services have been provided in Vietnam since 2009, when 3G and wifi became popular. 

However, viewers could only watch TV in their web browser at a low speed. Only with the boom of smartphone, tablet and OTT app stores such as Viber, WhatApps later did OTT TV begin to develop.

In 2013, existing television channels such as VTV, HTV, VTC and SCTV began providing OTT TV services. 

Internet service providers also jumped on the bandwagon, including FPT Telecom with FPT Play service, VNPT with MyTV Net and VNG with Zing TV.

Two years ago, VNPT launched online TV and entertainment service MyTV Net with 80 domestic channels and on-demand channels which provide films, TV shows, music stores, news stories, YouTube video clips and others.

Meanwhile, FPT Play, with 100 channels, allows users to watch TVs on smartphones and tablets everywhere and at any time. It attracts 5.7 million regular users a month.

Television channels also provide services to smart TV users. FPT Play has been available on the latest versions of Sony’s Smart TVs, and will be available on Samsung’s and LG’s Smart TVs as well.

The high interaction ability of OTT TV is one of the reasons that OTT TV will be favored in the near future, according to analysts.

With FPT Play, users can easily find content via keywords, make comments, post opinions and share content with friends. 

Meanwhile, ZingTV allows the synchronization of personal information through Zing accounts, and sharing of videos with friends. You can easily find videos and watch favorite programs.

In order to improve the transmission speed, FPT Play said it has set up 3,000 servers to ensure a 160 gigabyte per second speed and cloud computing with a capacity of 700 TB. 

Meanwhile, MyTV Net uses a transmission line of VNPT, a major player in the telecom sector, while Zing TV has its own high-speed transmission line.

NLD