'Zalo competes fairly with foreign platforms'
At the press conference of the Ministry of Science and Technology on the afternoon of August 28, Mr. Nguyen Anh Cuong, Deputy Director of the Department of Telecommunications, cited Zalo as an example of the development of domestic digital platforms, in the context that most cross-border services in Vietnam have foreign origins.
According to Mr. Cuong, Zalo has "become a large platform", ranking first in the number of subscribers in the domestic market and capable of "competing fairly" with foreign services. Besides Zalo, a number of domestic businesses have also developed their own platforms and brought products to the market such as Viettel's Tammi and Lotus Chat.
The data also contribute to proving this statement. According to Decision Lab's The Connected Consumer Q1/2025 report, Zalo is the most used messaging platform in Vietnam, with a rate of 79%, higher than Facebook (69%), Messenger (54%) and Viber (7%). When asked if they could only choose one application to connect with friends and family, 51% of users chose Zalo, while Facebook was 21% and Messenger was 20%.
Mr. Cuong said that the development of domestic digital platforms is going hand in hand with the completion of the management framework for OTT services. The Telecommunications Law 2023 has brought this group of services into the legal framework, in the direction of "light-touch", meaning light-level management, without applying the management method like traditional telecommunications services.
In fact, major cross-border platforms such as Viber, Telegram and WhatsApp have all complied with regulations, made service provision announcements and coordinated with authorities according to Vietnamese law. This is something "rarely other countries in the region can do", Mr. Cuong said.
"Speedboard" for Vietnamese businesses to go abroad
Answering a reporter's question about: "What needs to be done for domestic digital platforms to develop and go abroad?", Mr. Nguyen Khac Lich, Director of the Department of Digital Technology and Artificial Intelligence, said that in order to have more digital technology businesses capable of competing in the international market, Vietnam must first become a "springboard" for them.
According to him, a "springboard" is when a business can research and develop products right in Vietnam, taking advantage of the domestic force of programmers and information technology personnel, before bringing the product to the international market.
He said that the Ministry of Science and Technology currently has representatives in 22 key markets, which are considered "ports" to support Vietnamese businesses when accessing new markets.
These representatives can help businesses understand their needs and connect with the government, local authorities and local businesses. "When developing a new market, businesses will feel more secure if our people are there," he said.
Vietnam currently has more than 80,000 digital technology businesses, creating jobs for 1.9 million workers. Vietnam's digital technology industry revenue increases from 130 billion USD in 2020 to 198 billion USD in 2025. Revenue from foreign markets also increases from 5.6 billion USD to 15 billion USD in the same period.
According to the Department of Digital Technology and Artificial Intelligence, after creating scale, this field needs to "shift from growth in quantity to growth in value", from processing and assembly to design, creation and mastery of technology, and at the same time expand from the domestic market to global competition.
Trong Dat