Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Thailand, have been named YouTube’s five biggest markets globally, based on how long users spend watching video on the site, according to Ajay Vidyasagar, YouTube’s Asia Pacific regional director.
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Mobile consumption, actually, really started showing up as a game-changer from this region, he added.
Asia is home to some of the largest smartphone markets in the world, including India and Indonesia. Moreover, the development of high-speed mobile internet connections has also made video content more accessible to users than in the past when most people watched television instead.
Vietnamese spend nearly seven hours a day online, of which 2.37 hours on average are spent on social media, ranking 15th globally. YouTube is the second-most accessed site in the country with a user ratio of 59%, behind Facebook at 61%, according to a 2018 report by We Are Social.
Additionally, 73% of the population uses mobile phones, of them 42% use smartphones and 50 million people use mobile social media, according to a report by Vietnamese digital advertising firm Adsota earlier this year.
Currently, the Vietnamese government aims to make Vietnam one of the first countries in the world to deploy new connectivity technology, specifically the 5G network, according to Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung.
Under the plan, the Ministry of Information and Communications will proceed with piloting 5G network in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2019, and later nationwide coverage one year later.
Major mobile carriers in Vietnam have already announced plans to develop 5G networks using equipment from other suppliers, including Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung Electronics, reported Nikkei Asia Review.
To date, local mobile network operators such as Viettel and MobiFone have been granted license to pilot the 5G technology.
