VietNamNet Bridge – The figures announced by Viber, Line, Kakao Talk or Zalo about their numbers of users are unreliable. Experts say these are just the numbers of downloads, not the active users.

How many Vietnamese users?

On Techinasia, Viber stated that it has had the 3.5 millionth user in Vietnam, even though the service provider has not run any advertisement campaign in Vietnam.

Viber said it gets 20,000 new users every day, while in February 2013, the number of new users increased sharply by 500,000, while it expects to see the number of members increase to 600,000 in March.

A Viber’s representative has affirmed that Vietnamese users would have the chance to use the Viber 3.0 version with some more attractive features.

Meanwhile, in late February 2013, Line stated that it had had one million users in Vietnam since the day it joined the market in late 2012. To celebrate the event, Line Vietnam decided to offer 7 sets of sticker, free of charge for seven days to all users. All the free stickers could be downloaded from 9 am to 8.59 am of the next day, from February 28 to the end of March 6.

Right after Line Vietnam made announcement about one million members, three other service providers Kakao Talk, Zalo and Viber have also released the high figures about their numbers of users in Vietnam.

Kakao Talk, which just made debut in Vietnam in January 2013, has got one million members already. Zalo has also had one million users over the last six months, since the day the first version was introduced in August 2012.

However, analysts have commented that the figures released by Line, Kakao Talk, Zalo or Viber are just for reference, saying that these are the numbers of downloads, not the numbers of active users. Especially, the figures have not been verified by independent units.

Meanwhile, sources said that the numbers of active users are about 50-60 percent.

Who is leading the market?

The report on the “hottest” apps of Apple store’s Social Network in Vietnam showed that from January 1, 2013 to January 30, 2013, the three leading positions belonged to Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Viber (or Zalo).

However, after the Internet users unanimously boycotted the Chinese service providers, WeChat has seen dramatic falls.

Zalo led the market from January 8 to February 15. Meanwhile, Kakao Talk or Line stayed on the second position in shifts during the same time. On the days from February 11 to March 11, Line stayed firmly on the second position.

Google Play also shows the same changes in the positions of the service providers. Apple, Viber and Yahoo Messenger held the first position in shifts from January 1, 2013 to February 15, 2013.

By February 17, with the strong growth, Line had climbed to the first position. Meanwhile, by March 11, Viber had still been on the first position, followed by Line and Zalo on the second and third positions, respectively.

A senior executive of MobiFone, one of the three biggest mobile network operator, said the apps of messaging free of charge via Internet of Viber, Whatsapp, Yahoo Messenger, Facebook Messenger, Skype, iMessage have been the biggest bandwidth consumers. Meanwhile, VInaPhone has named Facebook Messenger and Viber.

VNG has declined to make comments about the reported positions of the free messaging apps, though Zalo has been always put on the high positions in the reports. A VNG’s executive said the figures have not been verified by independent units.

An expert said it would be better to find out the leaders in different market segments. For example, Yahoo Messenger and Facebook Messenger are the two leaders in terms of messaging and making call free of charge with computers, mobile phones. Meanwhile, Whatsapp, Viber, Line are the big guys in terms of messaging and calling from mobile to mobile phones.

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