CEO VNG Le Hong Minh: We Build Technology and Grow

There are 3 memorable milestones in VNG's technology journey.

The first milestone was the article "I Play and Make Games" in late 2006. It was when we determined to be “more than games” and chose Yahoo as our direct competitor. This article also became an inspiring call, drawing a large number of new talents to VNG, most notably Mr. Vuong Quang Khai, who had just earned his Master’s degree at Columbia University (USA).

VNG started 2007 with a variety of ‘web’ products - news, blog, social network, forum, chat, email, search engine, music, video… The Zing.vn portal was launched in August 2007, surpassing Yahoo to become Vietnam's most-visited website in just 4 months. By the end of 2010, Zing Me - our social network with integrated online gaming - had amassed nearly 10 million MAU, surpassing Facebook to become Vietnam's largest social network, featuring blockbuster games such as Nong trai vui ve (Happy Farm), Khu vuon tren may (Sky Garden), and Gunny Web.

From 2009, with the strategy of making persistent investment in IT engineering and product development teams, today VNG is virtually the only Vietnamese technology company that owns and controls the entirety of our products without relying on any external partner. From Zalo, ZingPlay to new business areas like Zalopay, Cloud, and AI, all have been built and pursued upon this principle.

The first lesson I learned from this milestone was to build product and master technology with our core capabilities. Initially, the rapid and resounding success of Vo Lam Truyen Ky (Sword Heroes Fate Series) prompted VNG to build our Web business through partnerships, bringing our partners’ web products to the Vietnam market. However, after just a short while, we realized this approach could bring us long term success. On the journey to become a true technology company, we need to learn to build products ourselves, even when it is a risky, costly and demanding process.

Our first office and the original poster of Võ Lâm Truyền Kỳ

The second milestone was 2012, the peak of all PC products and the dawn of the mobile Internet era.

Seeing the vast potential of the mobile application market, we decided to forego the lucrative VAS (Value Added Services) business to focus on building products like Zalo, Bao Moi and Zing MP3, as well as launching Mobile Games.

PC products revenue was all on constant decline, while VNG was yet to generate income from Mobile Apps. At the same time, heavy investment costs had put us in a dire situation. 2014 marked our 10th anniversary; it was also our first revenue drop in history (~VND 1,800 billion). It was only in 2016 - 2017, when Mobile Games’ revenue boomed, that VNG regained financial confidence. By 2019, mobile revenue had accounted for over 90% of our total revenue (compared to 0% in 2013). This milestone marked VNG’s successful transformation from a PC company to a Mobile Internet company, a rare feat only a handful of the world’s technology companies could achieve. In the meanwhile Yahoo, once an internet icon and VNG’s previous goal, aspired to surpass, was no longer around in 2019.

The second key lesson is that when a new wave of technology emerges, we need to focus full force based on conviction about the long term, even as the risks are high and the revenue might not come in the short term. Looking back at our journey, I still believe that Mobile Internet was truly a rare opportunity, and we were incredibly fortunate to be at that critical juncture since the very beginning. Today, we have envisioned the AI wave rising and bringing profound transformation to the world. I have the conviction that, on our 30th birthday, VNG will be an AI company.

Zing Me's interface in its early days

The third milestone was 2022, when we just enjoyed a period of continued growth in both user base and revenue, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since 2019, VNG strengthened research to lay down the foundation for new business areas such as Financial payment and cloud computing; invested in global game and technology companies; increased our workforce constantly and recruited seasoned experts from the international market. The whole VNG team was caught up in the "tech fever" of that time and we believed all our investments to be fruitful.

Yet we had to face the truth that the majority of our investments would not grow with ease as expected. By early 2023, VNG had to downsize considerably, closed down many experimental projects and went lean and cut costs. Overall, VNG suffered a major loss due to the ineffective investments of the past 5 years, from which we learned plenty of painful lessons.

The third lesson after all we’ve been through is to always maintain persistence, a humble mindset and the company’s core values. Major successful technology companies are often swept away by grandiose investors and impressive numbers. They forget fundamental business principles, only focusing on rapid scaling up and acquiring customers at all costs. Many has had to bear severe consequences and was forced to complete change their direction.

VNG supporting the community during Vietnam's resilient fight against the pandemic

Turning twenty, VNG is no longer the young start-up we were. VNG in 2024 is a major technology company, with revenue reaching almost 10 trillion VND (5 times higher than 2014) and more than 4,000 Starters working at 14 offices around the globe. Our core businesses - Games, Zalo, Fintech, and Digital Business - currently serve over 100 million individual users and tens of thousands of enterprise customers.

To us, however, VNG’s growth is far beyond the story told by numbers.

It’s the kind of growth that comes from our character, honed through the odds and the failures we’ve had along the way.

We can still recall 2018, when our Data Center ‘shut down’. VNG team did all we could to restore all operations in just 12 hours. After that incident, VNG was determined to invest in the Tan Thuan Data Center, now among the most advanced DCs in Vietnam.

We can still recall 2019, when Zalo faced extreme pressure and scrutiny from management authorities. We worked diligently and made transparent all of our source codes and operating systems to affirm that Zalo was a product made by Vietnamese. Since then, Zalo has had continued strong growth, becoming the largest communication platform in Vietnam, surpassing major foreign competitors.

We can still recall the Covid-19 pandemic, when VNG arranged remote work for 4,000 Starters, ensured stable operations of all product suites, served surging user demands and continued expansion in international markets - all at the same time.

Two decades of innovation, VNG embodies the spirit of 'embracing challenges

It’s the kind of growth that comes from a clear understanding of the product value we pursue, not chasing short-lived trends.

We believe crypto games do not create real value for users, except speculation, and therefore said a firm no to the wave of ‘massive user enrolment’ in crypto games.

We believe Zalo became the number 1 messaging application in Vietnam because Zalo was persistent and focused on its core product values - fast, stable, safe, and convenient - with no ‘profit’ pressure.

Millions of Vietnamese people received storm and disaster alerts through Zalo

It’s the kind of growth that comes from community responsibility.

We are proud when Zalo Connect has connected and enabled users to help hundreds of thousands of people in need during the Covid-19 years, as well as sending out hundreds of millions of alert messages about natural disasters, typhoons and flooding all these past years.

We are proud when UpRace has connected and motivated hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to join running, for both charitable and health benefits.

We are proud that in 2023, a challenging year, VNG was among the 30 private enterprises contributing the most to State budget.

Our community projects (Dua Internet Ve Lang & UpRace)

It’s the kind of growth that comes from the growth journey of our very own VNG people.

We grow, when five out of the seven members of our Board of Directors were once engineers and product builders. They have stayed and grown with VNG for 10 to 15 years and are now taking charge of various major business lines at VNG.

We grow, when many VNG young talents continuously learn, grow and take on key positions across different business areas just before the age of 30.

We grow, when many VNG people are always ready to embrace challenges, reinventing ourselves in a technology landscape that is fiercely competitive and rapidly evolving.

Together, we grow through all challenges and dreams...

We dreamed about making products for tens of millions of users and together building a successful Internet company. Today, although humble in scale in comparison with other major regional and global technology companies, we can still be truly proud to have realized this enchanting dream.

Founder & CEO VNG, Le Hong Minh