Online for revenue jump

Yahoo! saw great potential in the Vietnamese market and expected a double-growth in 2011 over 2010, said Yahoo! Vietnam business director Doan Thanh Huyen.

Online advertising makes up just 3.7 per cent of Vietnam’s total advertising revenue and this was a big opportunity for Yahoo! to make inroads, Huyen said.

Vietnam’s online advertising total revenue reportedly exceeded $25 million in 2010 against $15.5 million in 2009, up 61 per cent and is expected to hit $114 million in 2013.

Vietnam’s advertising turnover accounted for only 1 per cent of Asia-Pacific’s, Huyen said.

Recently, for the first time Yahoo! hosted its summit conference on marketing in the Asia-Pacific region in Vietnam which attracted 120 leading advertisers worldwide. On the occasion, the firm’s executive confirmed Yahoo! Vietnam will launch scores of new products onto the market until the year end to the delight of Vietnamese customers.

Yahoo! currently holds around 30 per cent of Vietnam’s online advertising market share, according to preliminary surveys.

In late 2010, a senior executive of Google, the world most popular web search engine, said Vietnam has a tremendous potential for online advertising and undertook to step up investment in the country.

Ashamanov & Partner, one of leading Russian online marketing firms, also decided to jump into Vietnam through inking a cooperative agreement with a local partner in promoting advertising services via searching tools.

According to IDC’s figures, only 23 per cent of the Vietnamese population uses the Internet while the market expects to see an additional 17 million young users within the next 10 years. Internet subscribers in Vietnam grew by 25 per cent last year, higher than Indonesia with 11 per cent.