From Tech In Asia
Last week, we wrote that Vietnam’s smartphone userbase had hit 36 percent of the population. That puts the total number of users at 33 million of Vietnam’s 93 million population. But that article based its numbers on a Tuoi Tre article, which based its numbers on a study done by TNS research firm. The problem is TNS’ numbers are suspect.
A man uses a mobile phone in Hanoi, Vietnam. (Brent Lewin/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Some of our dear readers pointed out to us that 33 million is way too high given the current state of Vietnam’s smartphone growth. So we had to pry deeper into the mobile research world for better approximate numbers for Vietnam’s smartphone users.
Our first stop was with VNG. VNG is reliable since it not only studies the mobile landscape closely but also has invested heavily in conquering the local mobile market with its chat app, Zalo. A source at the tech juggernaut noted that a 30-plus million figure is more likely about the number of devices that have shipped across the country, but does not give you the number of actual users. Especially given that a large percentage of users year-on-year are replacing their old smartphones. The estimate from VNG is 21 to 22 million smartphone users.
To confirm, we jumped over to Appota, VNG’s competitor in the third party mobile app store space. Appota, which has millions of users on its app store, also assessed that the market is at 22 million smartphone users.
Read the full article HERE.
