VNG – Vietnam's tech unicorn has a change: Will Zalo be banned like Telegram?

After a series of news spread about the Ho Chi Minh City Police suddenly inspecting the VNG Campus headquarters in Tan Thuan, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, many users have raised doubts about the fate of the leading messaging app in Vietnam, Zalo, which may be in the same scenario as Telegram is currently.

Zalo is considered the Vietnamese version of Telegram.

As BeInCrypto previously Chia , Telegram currently has around 950 million users worldwide. It is ranked as one of the most popular messaging apps in many fields, including Crypto. In Vietnam alone, according to statistics from DataReportal, cited by Vnexpress, 3 out of 10 Internet users use Telegram .

However, after the recent arrest of CEO Pavel Durov in France , Telegram is showing signs of being blocked in many countries . Obviously, the number of 950 million global users for a messaging super app is both potential but also potential security and political risks for many countries.

Not as spectacular as Telegram, Zalo, VNG's beloved product, once known as Vietnam's technology unicorn, also shows amazing numbers. According to The Connected Consumer Q1 2023 report recently released by MMA Vietnam and Decision Lab, Zalo is the most used messaging app in Vietnam.

Specifically, Zalo leads with a usage rate of 86%. With 75 million regular users out of a total of 99.46 million Vietnamese people (2022 data), this application plays an important role in the daily lives of Vietnamese people.

Notably, not only Vietnamese users, in fact, Zalo is now present in all continents in the world. The countries with the most Zalo members include the US, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia... African countries such as Angola or Saudi Arabia in the harsh Middle East also have Zalo users. Thus, although not as good as Telegram, Zalo is also showing the global presence strategy of the parent company VNG.

Will Zalo be banned like Telegram?

The move of the parent company VNG being suddenly inspected, although there has not been an official announcement from the Vietnamese authorities, has caused a lot of speculation around it. This is even more noteworthy when VNG recently appointed a new acting General Director after this incident, replacing Mr. Le Hong Minh. It is not excluded that this incident is directly related to Mr. Minh's personal responsibility at VNG.

The shareholder structure of the VNG-related company planning to list on the US stock exchange has shown the presence of Chinese technology corporations such as Tencent or Ant Group. Combined with the fact that the Zalo application has been accused of leaking user information through the Search Nearby feature, users cannot help but doubt the security of user information and data.

Although not as “free” as Telegram, with the scenarios that Telegram is facing and the incidents that are happening, it is not difficult to imagine that Zalo will need to be more tightly controlled. In that context, Zalo will most likely need to cooperate and comply with more regulations in each country where it operates. We will wait and XEM how Zalo in particular and VNG in general will “change their skin” after this move.

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