Local Sites Win Highest Penetration for Edutainment

Cimigo just released Vietnam NetCitizens Report about internet usage and development in Vietnam. The report is based on the largest and most comprehensive study on internet usage ever done in Vietnam and sheds light into many areas of internet usage where no well-founded knowledge was available before. The Vietnam NetCitizens report is available for free at www.cimigo.vn.

The Most Popular Sites

Local sites win with the highest penetration for edutainment (news, entertainment, blogging, games, music) whereas global sites win for search (Google) and communications (Yahoo!).

There are vast differences impacting online media planning by region and target group profiles. Overall more than 2000 different websites were captured in the NetCitizens study. Half of the websites accessed in the past 4 weeks were either online newspapers or music entertainment sites. Other popular website groups are social networks, games, movies, shopping and movies.

Google is the most widely used website in Vietnam. Nearly half of internet users have used google in the past month. Google is the most often used website across gender, age groups, socio-economic class and geographical regions.

Zing shows the second largest penetration. One in four internet users in Vietnam have used one of the various Zing websites in the past month. Among the different services Zing offers (movies, music, games, news, chat etc), mp3.zing.vn is the most popular.

About one in four internet users has recently used Yahoo. Included in this figure are yahoo.com, yahoo.com.vn, Yahoo messenger and Yahoo mail.

Vietnamese online newspapers follow as the next popular websites. Dan Tri (dantri.com.vn) has been visited by nearly 20% overall and nearly 50% of internet users in Hanoi.

VnExpress (vnexpress.net) and Tuoi Tre (tuoitre.com.vn) both have been used by 16-17%. Users of VnExpress are concentrated in Metro Vietnam (Hanoi / HCMC) whilst Tuoi Tre users are primarily located in the South.

Nhaccuatui.com for music ranks 7th. 24h (24h.com.vn) and Thanh Nien Online (thanhnien.com.vn) are on rank 8 and 9 with about 10% penetration to each.

Facebook at the time of the survey (November and December 2009) ranked 10th and was leading in the social network space; however recent events would have changed this behaviour.

Websites visited in past 4 weeks by age group

Among the age group 15-24, Google and Zing are the two top sites, with penetration above 40%. Internet users aged 25-34 are predominantly focused on online newspapers and usage of the major music and entertainment sites drops considerably.

Internet users 35+ are solely focused on online newspapers and use entertainment sites to a very small extent. The use of online newspapers differs by geographical region. Dantri and Vietnamnet are mainly used in Hanoi, while penetration of Tuoitre and Thanh Nien is high in HCMC.

Urban Penetration Hits 50%

Overall, half of urban Vietnamese have already accessed the internet. “If you live in urban Vietnam and do not access the internet you are fast becoming the minority. The internet is rapidly becoming an integral part of the live of the Vietnamese”, says Lukas Mira, Cimigo’s Online director. Nearly 90% of internet users access the internet more than once a week and about 70% use it daily. Currently, an average internet is online for more than two hours every day. Once a destination mainly for the young, the internet is increasingly used by older residents, today one quarter of internet users are 35 years or older.

Tags: Vietna IT, Vietnam internet market