Several social networks have been launched in Vietnam over the past years as an effort to replace Facebook, which dominates in the country with nearly 60 million users. 
Gapo social platform
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Gapo, a social media platform that lets users create personal profiles and share posts to a Facebook style “news feed”, has received VND500 billion (US$21.55 million) in funding from tech corporation G-Group, Reuters quoted Gapo’s CEO Ha Trung Kien as saying.
“Vietnamese users and enterprises are relying too much on Facebook as there are not so many social networks for them to choose from,” Kien said, adding that Gapo plans to reach 3 million users in 2019 and 20 million by January 2021.
VietNamta social platform
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Before Gapo, domestic social platforms built prior to Gapo, such as Go.vn, Hahalolo, and VietNamta are also similar to Facebook.
Diep Quang Van, founder of VietNamta, said that the social networks require firm technology foundation and a huge amount of money to operate and Vietnamese firms should get well prepared for such two factors, the Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper reported.
Hahalolo social platform
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In September 2018, Minister of Information and Communications (MIC) Nguyen Manh Hung urged Vietnamese companies to create viable domestic alternatives to foreign social media platforms.
Earlier this month, he said Vietnam needs to have its own social network and search engine to replace foreign platforms Facebook and Google.
“Vietnam wants to be powerful, so it must rely on technology. This responsibility rests with IT firms,” he is quoted by newswire Zing as saying, saying that digital transformation will help Vietnamese firms expand.
In addition, a new social network is more humanitarian and values its clients as Facebook currently reaps hundreds of billions of US dollar from the users but its rules are not made by its users.
Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung
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“We used to think Google was great. But when an ordinary person asks a question, Google gives millions of very different answers, and (the user) may not know which is right or wrong. Google depends on the money paid to them to put the (paid) results first,” he said.
He noted that shortcomings in the operations of Facebook and Google open up space for new social networks and search engines. Therefore, local IT firms and startups have a great opportunity to develop a new ecosystem, philosophy and business model for not only Vietnam but also the wider world.
He revealed that the MIC is drafting a set of community standards for local IT firms to create home-grown social networks that must fulfill three criteria: sharing value with users, allowing users to make contributions, and acting within the national laws.
Vietnam is ranked seventh among the countries with the largest number of Facebook users with more than 58 million as of July 2019, according to Germany-based statistics company Statista.
In 2018, digital ad revenue in Vietnam totaled around US$663 million. Despite robust growth, Vietnamese online advertisement networks like VCCorp/Ad-micro, VnExpress/Eclick, Zing/Adtima only shared a tiny portion of the digital ad revenue of US$150 million while Facebook reaped US$235 million and Google earned US$152.1 million during the year. The two giants accounted for nearly 70% of online advertisement in Vietnam.
