VietNamNet Bridge - Coc Coc is well known in Vietnam as a browser on par with the world favorite Chrome. However, its founders initially planned to develop the company as a search engine.

Le Van Thanh, a co-founder of Coc Coc

Just two years after it made its debut, Coc Coc became the second most popular in Vietnam, defeating a series of the world’s well-known browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

Analysts believe that Coc Coc is a threat to Chrome’s No 1 spot in Vietnam. 

According to Le Van Thanh, co-founder of Coc Coc, the browser attracts 4.6 million users a day with 80,000 downloads.

In 2010, when three Vietnamese students returned to the home country after spending years of studying in Russia, Coc Coc was set up. They dreamed of developing a search engine with the support of Victor Lavrenko, a manager of Nigma.ru. At that time, the search engine market was beginning.

According to Thanh, Coc Coc then had three approaches. First, developing a search tool like math or physics, one for locations and one for a browser.

In early 2013, in Vietnam, Coc Coc was described as a new rising star with the searching technology.

However, at that time, many search engines like Timnhanh, xalo and hoatieu all took the knock. Other well known searching tools like Bing and Yahoo began to decline. Google remains the only giant.

Some years ago, the Vietnamese market witnessed Coc Coc growing rapidly. However, the major product of Coc Coc was not a search engine, but a browser developed on the basis of Chromium.

Coc Coc is well known in Vietnam as a browser on par with the world favorite Chrome. However, its founders initially planned to develop the company as a search engine.

The aim of Coc Coc is to develop a Vietnamese browser for Vietnamese. Just two months after the launch, it was listed as one of the five most popular browsers in Vietnam.

Thanh said that developing a browser is a way the co-founders chose to develop a product they put their hearts in.

He admitted that at the early stage of development, the firm could not have perfect products at once.

“At that time, Google search engine was very good already which could satisfy most requirements. Therefore, we had to find another way. And luckily we found the right one,” Thanh said.

“Outstripping Google Chrome is not our goal,” he said. “What we want is to find out the users’ requirements and develop the features that satisfy requirements, rather than chase the opponent."

In early February 2015, Coc Coc received big investment capital of $14 million from German Hubert Burda Media.


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