VietNamNet Bridge – A new chapter has begun in the history of the OTT (over the top) app market. As some service providers have left, the market is now controlled by the three big guys Zalo, Viber and Line.

Hai Linh, a worker of a foreign advertisement firm in HCM City, said she has been using OTT apps for more than one year.

“This is the main communication channel,” Linh said. “I have been using OTT apps not only when contacting my friends, but also in my work. OTT is quicker than email which allows receiving messages, answer messages and calls at any time.”

Linh began using a new mobile phone last month, an iPhone 5S. Viber, Zalo, Line have been installed in her phone. The 24-year-old girl said she is not loyal to any particular software, but she has been using all the three.

“Zalo is for messaging and chatting. It is the software I use most. Meanwhile, I use Viber to call my boss overseas. I also use Line, but this is just for contacting my friends, the young people who play games,” Linh said.

Like Linh, a lot of Vietnamese young people install all the OTT apps available on the market in their phones.

As Kakao Talk has nearly disappeared on the market, Chinese Wechat has been boycotted by the Vietnamese users, the market is now being controlled by the three big guys – Viber, whose advantages in voice service, Line, which has advantages in games, and Zalo which focuses on messaging feature.

Of the “big three,” Zalo is the only Vietnamese brand, while Line is the only East Asian name holding out in the Vietnamese market.

In late November, Viber announced it had had 8 million users in Vietnam, becoming the network with the highest number of users. The advantages of Viber lie in the feature which allows making international calls at low fees. Present in Vietnam very early, Viber has been targeting the clients who have relatives and friends overseas and need to communicate them regularly.

In December 2013, Viber marketed Viber Out, the service which allows users to make calls to fixed line subscribers at low costs. With VND400 per minute in fee, it is obviously cheaper to make calls with Viber than Skype which had been familiar to Vietnamese until the appearance of Viber.

Meanwhile, Line has been very popular among teenagers. The OTT app has also been chosen by the people who love icons and Line Pop games.

Line is known as the first commercialized OTT app after a lot of games have been known on its platform. Experts say there have been not many contacts via Line. It has been installed just for users to pay games and take pictures. Line’s ecosystem has been unceasingly expanding, while it has been trying to encourage people to spend money to upgrade games or buy icons.

Meanwhile, Zalo, the only Vietnamese OTT app, has the advantages in messaging. Zalo has a lot of features, from phone call, voice, text, picture chatting to personal blogs. However, the other features have not caught the users’ special attention.

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