Business messaging in Vietnam continues to grow

Could you share some insights of Messenger's growth in Vietnam?

In Vietnam, Messenger is at the heart of customer interactions, enabling businesses to do more with conversations, especially among Generation Z. Today, there are more than 600 million conversations between people and businesses every day on our platforms.

Vietnam leads the region in business messaging, with nearly half of Vietnamese customers using social media platforms for product-related discovery. At least 1 in 3 consumers in Vietnam say they chat with businesses on a weekly basis. And on the business side of things, 83 per cent of businesses in Vietnam have told us that they get high quality leads from placing ads on Facebook that click-to-message threads.

How do you see the unique challenges or advantages to the Vietnamese market?

Vietnam is one of the fastest growing internet-based economies in the region. The high degree of internet and mobile penetration, as well as a connected and engaged Gen Z has supported the growth of a vibrant digital economy.

Notably, 45 per cent of consumers message businesses directly to make decisions on a product they like, and 62 per cent engage with businesses via messaging apps monthly.

Among Generation Z, 76 per cent are active users of Business Messaging, with even higher adoption rates among Generation Y (86 per cent) and Generation X (82 per cent). Messenger is the preferred platform to conclude conversations with businesses, with a 60 per cent preference rate.

At the same time, small-and-medium-sized enterprises are the major drivers of Vietnam’s economic growth as 98 per cent of the country's economy is fuelled by these amazing small- and medium-sized enterprises. They have a strong appetite for new technology adoption, and that’s why we believe that Vietnam would benefit from Meta’s latest investment in technology, in particular our AI-powered discovery engine. We are investing heavily in AI to develop and deploy privacy-enhancing technologies and continue building new tools that will fundamentally enable us to deliver more performant and privacy-safe ads.

In terms of challenges, the competition is fiercer than ever before now that people have more options of social media platforms to choose from. However I think this kind of competition is good for the ecosystem. It drives innovation and better services for people. We’ve spent more than a decade building the most powerful discovery engine in history — one that generates connection among people, demand for businesses, and interest in brands.

What are your plans for growth in Vietnam given local app Zalo's increasing market share?

Vietnam's digital economy is thriving and diverse enough to accommodate multiple social platforms and e-commerce models. This presents an opportunity for Meta to continue investing in technologies that facilitate connections and engagement among users. By focusing on delivering innovative features and enhancing user experience, we are confident that we will continue to be relevant to our Vietnamese community.

We do this through our four-pronged strategy to help empower businesses with 1) innovation, 2) activation, 3) education and 4) sharing best practices.

First, let’s talk about innovation. This year at the Business Messaging Summit, we first launched two new unique messaging solutions for local Vietnamese businesses, which are Live streaming tools and discovery features in Messenger based on our research and insights into the local market and consumer behaviour. Earlier this year, our vice president of Messenger also paid a visit to Vietnam to understand the market appetite and feedback from the community.

Secondly, we activate. We collaborate with leading partners in Vietnam such as Pancake and Haravan to advise businesses on how to leverage their lower funnel signals for better messaging performance. We will continue expanding our Meta Business Partner network so more and more businesses can access our advanced messaging solutions and products easily.

Third, and this is also significant, education. We built Vietnamese resources such as Blueprint to help businesses better understand and leverage our messaging solutions to drive incremental revenue for their businesses. We also host business messaging summits annually, where we bring together the entire ecosystem and share best practices and new products.

Last but definitely not least, we have been and will continue to share best practices. In addition to bringing the latest technology to Vietnam, we also customise our initiatives and programmes for local needs. For example, we have created an annual Business Messaging Award that rewards some of the best work in this area by advertisers, agencies and partners.

Facebook has become popular platform for shopping in Vietnam. Can you share details of this growth?

Facebook and Messenger continue to be leading platforms for discovery, evaluation and conversion. According to data from the Vietnam Ministry of Information and Communications, there has been a significant growth of 30 per cent in the number of digital technology businesses, along with a 32 per cent increase in revenue generated by the digital technology industry between 2019 and 2024. Additionally, the proportion of domestically produced digital industrial products within Vietnam (Made in Vietnam) has risen from 21 per cent to 29 per cent during the same period.

To help businesses in Vietnam make the most out of their conversations with customers, Meta just introduced new messaging products for Messenger at our business messaging summit a few days ago.

Messenger is the number one preferred inquiry method when Vietnamese consumers want to contact businesses during live streams. That’s why we are launching our live-streaming tools. Businesses advertising on Facebook Live will soon be able to leverage live-streaming tools that make it easy for livestream viewers to browse products featured and enquire about them via Messenger.

Meta combines its discovery engine with the commerce capabilities of Meta Business Partners such as Haravan, nhanh.vn, Pancake and Sapo in Vietnam for a smooth journey from chat to conversion. With product discovery features on Messenger, businesses can now sync their catalogue to Facebook, and customers can see the product catalogue inside the chat and conclude the conversations with businesses seamlessly without having to leave the chat.

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