VietNamNet Bridge – Having realized that Vietnamese users turn their back to Chinese WeChat, other service providers have launched a lot of free apps to attract users.

Buu Dien newspaper has quoted its sources as saying that Chinese WeChat and Hao123 obtained one million mobile users and 2 million visitors a day, respectively, just after several months of joining the market.

In June 2012, “Baidu tra da quan” (Baidu ice tea shop) social network ran on a trial basis in Vietnam with the domain name “.vn.” However, the Chinese service was not welcomed on mass media and social networks.

Therefore, when officially launched into the market on July 16, Baidu ice tea shop turned into “Baidu Tieba” in Vietnamese version. And the social network uses the international domain name “vn.tieba.com” instead of “.vn” or “.com.vn”

Baidu also provides online information inquiry service at zhidao.baidu.com.vn/ and searching network, online utility services at vn.hao123.com.

Tencent, another Chinese big guy, has also revealed its ambition of expanding its business in the global market, while Vietnam is a destination.

In April 2012, WeChat, a free chatting and messaging app of Tencent, officially landed in Vietnam together with the noisy advertisement campaigns on mass media. The event was so impressive that it was listed as one of the 20 most outstanding ICT events recognized by the Vietnamese ICT Journalists’ Club.

The journalists, when mentioning the event, also gave the warning that the joining of Chinese service providers in the Vietnamese market has raised the worry that if the software aims to keep watch and steal users’ data.

Some users said they felt inconvenient when Hao123, a searching engine, has been automatically installed into their computers and they met big difficulties in removing the unwanted software.

Phan Anh Tuan, Deputy Director of VTC Online, said VTC Online and other Internet firms in Vietnam have not been seriously influenced by the “evasion” of WeChat or Hao123, but it’s still necessary to give warnings against the security risks.

Kakao Talk, Zalo jump on the bandwagon

The Vietnamese Internet users’ community has called on Vietnamese not to use WeChat and shift to use other free chatting and messaging apps.

In January 2013, Kakao Talk, the Number 1 messaging app provider from South Korea, issued a new set of stickers for the Vietnamese market with the theme about Vietnamese traditional Tet. Analysts commented that there has been no app which can provide such purely Vietnamese traditional images like Kakao Talk.

They said that this is the first step taken by Kakao Talk to conquer the Vietnamese market, where Kakao Talk remains a new brand (it has only 150,000 users in Vietnam).

Zalo, a Vietnamese service provider has also introduced the 2013 Tet version on all the app stores of iOS, Android and Nokia in order serve the communication demand of the community on Tet days.

In early 2013, Viber announced on mass media that it would gather strength to conquer the Asian market, the market which brings 1/3 of the total users of Viber.

The service provider said the app has been translated into Chinese, Japanese and Korean, before the versions in Thai and Vietnamese get available.

According to Le Hong Minh, General Director of VNG, the mobile communication app market has become scorching hot with the participation of many “big guys.” If counting on VIber, WhatsApp and Yahoo Messenger, there are eight big guys in the market.

Compiled by C. V