Vietnam's digital industry is earning tens of trillion of dong

From a small-scale industry with annual revenue of VND3-4 trillion 10 years ago, Vietnam’s digital industry is now earning tens of trillion of dong.

In the ASEAN region, with more than 400 million people, the annual revenue of the digital content industry is estimated at $150 billion, of which $5-7 billion is from royalties and $55-65 billion from digital content services.

In Vietnam, the revenue from the digital content industry now accounts for less than 10 percent of the total revenue of the IT industry. However, the Information & Communication Strategy Institute said the industry has great potential with widespread use of the internet, smartphones, and improved broadband connections.

In five to 10 years, the digital content industry value will exceed textile & garment and oil and be second to tourism, the institute predicts. It will generate 1 million jobs. 

In Vietnam, large digital content firms such as VNG and VCCorp have annual revenue of trillions of dong and employ about 4,000 workers. The companies are drawing up a large-scale digital content industry in Vietnam.

According to the Ministry of Information & Communication (MIC), Vietnam is leading ASEAN countries with 92 percent of people watching online videos a week, higher than the Philippines with 85 percent and Indonesia 81 percent.

Just within four years, the proportion of online video watchers on smartphones has increased from 10 percent to 64 percent. Up to 97 percent of Vietnamese surveyed said they use ‘video on demand’ service to watch films, 90 percent watch entertainment programs, 89 percent news on local channels, 87 percent music programs and 84 percent foreign movies.

Nguyen Thanh Vinh, CEO of Khang Media, producer of many entertainment programs, said the shift from TV to digital content will continue. At present, traditional TV channels still bring profits to digital content producers, but not that much. The only way for traditional digital content producers is to set up online channels on an internet basis. 

However, he warned that revenue from online channels remains modest.

Esther Nguyen, CEO of POPS Worldwide, said despite the high number of users in Vietnam, the revenue from digital content is still lower than other markets. One reason: Vietnamese use Skip Ad, which limits revenue that producers can receive from sponsors.

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Hoang Ha