Vietnam mobile gaming growth underlines great ad promise

According to a report prepared by POKKT, a leading smartphone advertising platform in the Southeast Asia, the number of Vietnamese gamers is currently 28 million, and could jump to 40 million by 2020. They spend an average of 51 minutes daily playing mobile games over five to seven sessions.

Contrary to typical stereotypes, the Vietnamese gamers include males, females, old people and even mothers.

In fact, 59 percent of Vietnamese female gamers play on their mobile phones, higher than the 54 percent figure for men, said the report released in association with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and HCMC-based market research firm Decision Lab.

Among young adult gamers aged 18-35, 73 percent of women play on their mobile phones, against 65 percent of male gamers.

Men tend to spend more time in each session - 56 minutes, compared to 45 minutes by women.

Up to 53 percent of mothers with kids under the age of 10 play mobile games frequently, the report found.

People aged 45-54 years are also active gamers, accounting for 6 percent of the total gamer base.

Rohit Dadwal, managing director of MMA in the Asia Pacific, said: “While it is common to assume that gamers tend to come from a younger generation, this research has proven otherwise, and removes the stereotypes of a typical gamer."

“By changing their perception of what a ‘gamer’ is, marketers can tap into a relatively untouched space and reach out to a sea of customers.”

The report said the majority of Vietnamese mobile gamers, 82 percent, tend to play between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Ninety-six percent play more often at home while 40 percent do so at coffee shops.

Gaming is apparently the most time-consuming phone activity, accounting for 23 percent of the total time spent on mobile devices, higher than 18 percent on social networks and 14 percent for video streaming.

Aske Østergård, founder of Decision Lab, said: “More than half of Internet-connected Vietnamese are playing games on their mobile devices. As such, mobile gaming has now gone mainstream.”

In another report released earlier, French advertising platform Criteo said Vietnam’s online advertising has seen the higher compounded annual growth rate compared to television and print -- 27 percent -- since 2014.

It has forecast 89 percent of the country’s marketing budget would be spent on online advertising by 2022.