VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam’s software industry has high capability, great development potential, and a bright future, experts say. 

Vietnam’s software industry has high capability, great development potential, and a bright future

Nguyen Nhat Quang, deputy chair of Vinasa (Vietnam Software Association), reported that the total turnover of Vietnam’s software industry was $8.8 billion in 2017. About 600,000 workers are serving in the IT industry. 

The latest survey of Hakathon, the world’s software development competition, showed that Vietnam ranks 23rd in the world in coders’ capability. India and the US had more members participating the competition, but their results were more modest than Vietnam.

Commenting about Vietnam’s coders’ abilities, Dionisis Kolokotsas from Google Asia Pacific, said the 23rd position is a high ranking, but Vietnam still needs good policies to be able to develop further.

Meanwhile, Konstantin Matthies, a consultant of AlphaBeta, said Vietnam’s applied software market gains estimated revenue of $500 million.

He cited important figures: 7 percent of app developers in Asia were from Vietnam in 2014 and the number of smartphones in Vietnam would be $38 million by 2020

Dao Dinh Kha, director of the IT Department under the Ministry of Information and Communication, commented that software is the ‘backbone’ of the IT industry in Vietnam. 

While the revenue from hardware comes from foreign invested manufacturers, Vietnamese software firms have become well known in the world.

Ngan Le, a software developer, said Google’s community of developers in Vietnam is listed as developed among the 100 communities in the world. Most of them are independent developers and small companies which develop big products with a high numbers of users.

According to Ngan Le, the staff of software developers in Vietnam has been increasing rapidly. In 2010, TechStartup had a small scale, but now has 10,000 company members.

Barriers

Ngan Le said when working with the representatives of thousands of startups throughout the country, the biggest complaint she heard was about licensing. 

While it is now simple to follow the procedures to set up a business in Vietnam, it is very difficult to obtain the license to make games. Games development makes a great contribution to the national economy.

Nguyen Ha Dong is a typical example. The famous game developer wanted to set p a firm on developing games. However, he later gave up the idea because he found many overlapping documents.

George Nguyen, manager of a law firm, commented that there is still no legal framework for startups, while startups are considered small and medium enterprises. 

When investors withdraw their capital from startups, they are taxed 20 percent.  Meanwhile, in other countries, they don’t meet such problems. 

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