The OTT Messaging Battle: A One-Year Market Review

The OTT Messaging Battle: A One-Year Market Review covers the essential facts behind the topic, including what changed, why it mattered, and how it affected users.

This maintenance may continue without sudden changes from new factors because similarly, Vietnamese and international telecommunications markets often maintain the three-player market structure.

Self-Dispersed: Cannot Be 2 Million

According to the article " The OTT race continues with the No. 1 goal", the number of 2 million users to spontaneously spread is unfounded but based more on optimism than evidence. As a result, if OTT enterprises only focus on the milestone of 2 million, they think that they can grow organically.

The reason for the milestone of 2 million is not supported because the Vietnamese market at the time has too many competitors with different potentials but they have long-term market strategies. After WeChat 's withdrawal due to the boycott of the community, both LINE, KakaoTalk and Zalo are having certain positions in the market with different customer segments.

In practice, there are no exact figures published but at the time the number of smartphone users in Vietnam is approximately 20% (forecast of Ericsson last 2012) and 3G subscribers approximately 20 million people (Ministry statistics). TTTT end 2012). By the end of 2015, 3G subscribers will grow 226% compared to the current number of nearly 50 million users. These figures prove that the milestone of 2 million is merely the "self-praising" way of OTT units, not the actual meaning.

OTT messaging application is a familiar service of smartphone users today.

Specifically, in the context that Vietnam is gradually building management and cooperation frameworks between network infrastructure providers and OTT enterprises, this business group is facing many barriers from the network. To be able to shake hands with network businesses, OTT products must prove their quality and reputation as well as their security capabilities to ensure safety for customers. At the time LINE and Kakao seem to dominate with international certifications of security while Zalo has not made a statement to reassure users.

Given ideas for the 2 million user milestone that some OTT applications aim at are natural dispersal milestones such as Facebook, a mobile industry expert said that this is without a basis and can be misleading, because the number of 2 million or so many percent of smartphones installed is only natural if the ' playing field' has only one application.

The Long Way Changes User Behavior

OTT in general and OTT in Vietnam, particularly is still a new rank in the information-telecommunications technology market. As a result, to change user behavior from traditional messages to texting and calling OTT is not a simple transition. Most people who access OTT at the time only stop in the city, young and interested in technology. There is a huge market segment in the provinces, middle-aged users. Waiting for enterprises to exploit.

At the time, LINE, Kakao and Zalo seem to gradually shape their own market segments. It appears that Kakao is targeting gamers by cooperating with VTC and a series of VTC game accounts on their application. Zalo is exploiting the group of customers Zing inherent and teenage through their entertainment applications. After a while focusing on teen stars, it appears that Zalo is trying to change tactics with the hope of improving the image thanks to Dam Vinh Hung and Ngo Thanh Van. Meanwhile, LINE calmly recorded the high-class Stars trusting LINE like: My Linh, Quoc Trung, Hong Nhung.

As predicted by many people, OTT will continue to be competitive in the next 2-3 years

Of course there will be interference parts in this fierce competition, but it appears that these 3 applications will form the 'three-legged tripod ' - a very common model in the international and Vietnamese telecommunications market.

After one year, the OTT race Vietnam is gradually having increasingly clear features. With strong financial potential, foreign applications such as LINE and Kakao will continue to invest in aggressive and large-scale promotional campaigns. Meanwhile, Zalo is continuing to cling to social programs such as protecting the sea and islands to encourage users to support.