How a local messaging app defeated WhatsApp in Vietnam

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What’s the most popular messaging app in your part of the world? Here in Singapore, WhatsApp and Telegram are our main vehicles for text messages and photo sharing. But over in Vietnam, local messaging app Zalo has been taking the country by storm for nearly a decade now.

Zalo’s got a pretty firm grip on Vietnamese consumers. And now that it’s integrated mobile payment service ZaloPay into its messaging app, there’s plenty of potential for it to expand beyond being just a means of communication.

Today we look at:

• How Zalo could become the biggest app in Vietnam
• How fresh funding has opened up some opportunities for ecommerce aggregator iPrice
• Other newsy highlights from TikTok and Ant Group

PREMIUM SUMMARY

Zooming in on Zalo

Homegrown messaging app Zalo is a big deal in Vietnam: It has 52 million monthly active users, edging out international players like Viber, WhatsApp, and even Facebook Messenger. And with its mobile payment platform ZaloPay gaining ground, the app could very well become the WeChat of Vietnam.

• For locals, by locals: Zalo is a product of VNG, Vietnam’s first tech unicorn. The app was designed to be friendly to the average Vietnamese user and has notable features that make it popular with locals, such as free animated stickers compatible with the Vietnamese language and topic-specific group chats that ride on Vietnam’s forum culture.
• Too little, too late? With ZaloPay launched in 2017, Zalo could have gotten a head start in the Vietnamese super-app race, in the same vein that WeChat did in China. Yet somehow, it missed that opportunity.
• Integration is key: Now that Zalo has payments in its ecosystem, the next step could be integrating the messaging platform with VNG’s other services, such as Zing Play for mini-games. But whether that’s part of Zalo’s plans is up in the air.

Read more: Zalo beat WhatsApp in Vietnam. It now wants to be the country’s top super app

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