Carriers Tentatively Sign up OTT Services Market

Zalo is a leading light of the domestic technological industry as it maintained constant growth and achieved amazing milestones. The application had one million users in March 2013 but it had 7 million users by the end of 2013, just behind Viber with 8 million users. On March 20, 2014, Zalo officially reached the milestone of 10 million users and 120 million messages a day. This means Zalo had been installed in half of the smartphones in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Viber - the biggest rival of Zalo - has also kept continuous growth. Viber, an OTT service provider from Israel, reported to have 12 million users in Vietnam as of March 2014, compared with 8 million at the end of 2013. Both Zalo and Viber far surpassed Line, an application from Japan. However, unlike the two OTT market leaders, Line only covers commercial arrays like selling stickers, items and game power-ups. According to analysts, there is a steady increase in mobile commerce applications, customer care support applications, mobile content distribution systems and mobile payment forms which attract a lot of users. This development enables mobile users to experience many new applications.

 

Mr Vuong Quang Khai, Deputy General Director of VNG - the developer of Zalo, said: "The biggest goal of Zalo is to perfect its product to bring a better experience for users. The new version, Zalo 2.0, with significant changes in the user interface and features, will be available on international app stores in April 2014."

 

In contrast to the continuous growth of OTT services providers is the serious revenue decline of telecom network operators. And, this distresses mobile operators, especially MobiFone. This carrier silently filed an application to the Ministry of Information and Communications for permission to provide OTT applications. The ministry also confirmed that it was considering the permit for MobiFone. If licensed, MobiFone will be the first carrier in Vietnam to deploy OTT.

 

Earlier, Mr Nguyen Dinh Chien, Deputy General Director of MobiFone, said, MobiFone met Viber and Zalo to discuss plans for mutually beneficial cooperation but negotiations remained quite divided. This may be one of the reasons that forces MobiFone to ask for permit to develop and deploy its own OTT services.

 

Giant carriers, Viettel and VinaPhone, also expressed their interests in OTT services. Mr Nguyen Son Hai, Deputy Director of Business Department, VinaPhone, said, this network operator has contacted and negotiated with many OTT owners but it was not successful. Viettel said it was seeking to buy innovative companies like OTT companies.

 

According to experts, although MobiFone officially asked the Ministry of Information and Communications for deploying OTT services, VinaPhone and Viettel potentially have started, or will start, to work on OTT as MobiFone. The enthusiasm of network operators signals the robust growth and fierce competition on OTT market in the coming time.