(VOVWORLD) - Over the past decade and a half, VNG has diversified into cloud computing, ads, digital payments and media, and built up one of the biggest digital user bases in Vietnam, said an article recently published on the Japanese newspaper Nikkei Asia.
 The article on Nikkei Asia |
VNG is a gaming startup-turned-tech conglomerate that has become Vietnam's first unicorn.
The article cited Vuong Quang Khai, executive vice president at VNG, as saying: "The next wave is AI. And we should invest."
In December, Zalo AI introduced Kiki for smart speakers, saying it was built on technology similar to Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, but in Vietnamese.
According to the article, which discussed the firm’s bet on AI and overseas growth, VNG’s Zalo chat app has 62 million users, putting it behind only Facebook and YouTube in terms of popularity in the country, according to We Are Social. This makes it a rare example of a local player that has bested foreign rivals – in the rest of Southeast Asia, the most popular messaging apps are imports, such as Line or WhatsApp.
Statistics show that VNG's game segment contributes 79% of the company's total revenue of 6,000 billion VND (262 million USD) in its 2020 financial report.
VNG plans to add to its mobile lineup in India, Russia, Latin America and Southeast Asia.