1.
1
Mobile Ecosystem
& Sizing Report
Vietnam 2017/8

2.
WHAT WE WILL DISCOVER?
2
q Mobile phone consumer behavior and persona in Vietnam
q Mobile App ecosystem in Vietnam
q Mobile adspends in Vietnam
q Optimizing advertising creative for mobile

3.
3
Mobile Scape in Vietnam

4.
Mobile
phone
consumer
behavior
and
persona in
Vietnam
Vietnam is going from Mobile
first to Smartphone first.
2018, 70% are smartphones.
Smartphones are the
gateway to the internet.
85% of internet users used
smartphones to get online. (source -
GroupM 3D research 2013-2016).
They are everywhere.
44% of all smartphones in the
country are in rural areas.
Online video, shopping,
gaming, messaging and
social are the main activities.
4
Smartphones are sticky.
Vietnamese users are spending 2.5
hours on their mobile phones
everyday (source: Global Web Index 2016).

5.
5
Messaging.
74% of smartphone users in
Vietnam users use a messaging
service more than once a week (GfK,
Jun 2016).
Social
40M Vietnamese use social media
(eMarketer, Sep 2016)
84% of users open a social media
app daily (W&S Group, May 2016).
Online Video.
~70% of YouTube watch time in Vietnam is
on mobile phones
(source - Google internal data).
Shopping.
2013, only 6% of online shoppers in Vietnam
did this.
71% of online shoppers actually prefer to
use their smartphones to shop online
(source - GroupM 3D research 2016).
Gaming.
72% of online gamers in urban Vietnam
preferring to play on their phones over any
other device (source - GroupM 3D research 2016).

6.
6
Social media and messaging have highest usage and time spent, gaming and video also engaging

7.
7
Profile of Smartphone users in Vietnam

8.
Mobile App
Ecosystem
in Vietnam
8
Vietnamese users install on average 33 apps on
their smartphones
Music, games, chat/instant messengers, social networks,
photography are most popular apps
(According to GroupM’s 3D and Vietnam Touchpoint 2017 research.)
65% have made payments for Apps or In-Apps at least once.
(Also, according to TNS/Google Mobile App Marketing Insights report in 2016)
Around 20% pay subscriptions or make one-off payments for digital
media/entertainment content.
Around 80% users have bought a product or service within an app
(e.g. shoes, flight tickets, cabs, etc.) at least once.
30% of Vietnamese online shopping users shop through mobile apps.

9.
9
Together with the growth in online shopping, the launch of Alipay and Samsung Pay
app in Vietnam in 2017 to join current digital payment market leaders Payoo,
MoMo, VNPT Pay, OnePay, and ZaloPay will promise further growth in the M-
commerce market in the coming years.

10.
Mobile
Adspends
in Vietnam An Industry Perspective
50-60%, or even 80% for some
specific clients/brands which have
their target audience who are mobile
heavy users.
mobile ad spend often accounted for
about 20-40% of total digital spend
of each client/brand.
The growth of digital spend: around
24% total media spend in 2017
compared to 16% in 2016,
(according to GroupM’s 2017 This Year Next Year report).
10
38.5
77.1
138.7
194.2
215.5
231.7
0
50
100
150
200
250
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Vietnam Mobile Ad Spending (US$ million)
Source: eMarketer, October 2017 (Note: Includes display
(banners, video and rich media) and search; excludes SMS,
MMS and P2P messaging-based advertising; includes ad
spending on tablets)
The issues of transparency,
viewability, brand safety still critical
in digital advertising

11.
Optimizing
advertising
creative for
mobile
11
Mobile consumption is
non-linear. Spending on
average only 1.7 seconds
for each story seen on
Facebook’s Mobile News
Feed.
We need to rethink
our way of creating
media for mobile. The
traditional “best practices”
are no longer best.

12.
12
Ability to capture people’s attention: be it your key message, your brand or
your products.
Shorter videos formats like 6-second and 15-second tends to generate
higher completion rates, ensuring that the whole message gets through to
viewers.
Silent autoplay videos are gaining popularity with local publishers
76% of video advertisements currently are not optimized for a sound-off
environment.
Adding subtitles to your video ads.
Do a final creative review and ask yourself: Can you catch the key
message without turning sound on?
How to optimize your creatives for mobile

13.
Acknowledgement
13
MMA Vietnam would like to acknowledge the efforts put in by the following in producing this report:
GroupM - Ed Thesiger | Huong Luu |Huyen Doan
Kantar Media - Tran Thi Tan Mai
Facebook – William Nguyen
Google – Nitin Gajria | Anish Jain
Gameloft – Hoang Dat
Adtima - Zalo Group – Nguyen Anh Tuan
About MMA:
The MMA is the world’s leading global non-profit trade association comprised of more than 800 member companies, from nearly
fifty countries around the world. MMA Member companies hail from every faction of the mobile media ecosystem. Our consortium
includes brand marketers, agencies, enabling technologies, media companies and others. The MMA’s mission is to accelerate the
transformation and innovation of marketing through mobile, driving business growth with closer and stronger consumer
engagement.