Russia is potentially a lucrative market for Vietnamese app publishers with its 170 million smart phone users. — Photo courtesy of Yandex
Russia is a promising new market for Vietnamese game and app publishers even as the global market continues to evolve, experts have said.
They described it as an untapped market boasting over 170 million smart phone users.
According to The State of Mobile 2023 Report by data.ai, Russians spend more than four hours on average on apps as against the global average of 1.5 hours.
This presents a lucrative opportunity for Vietnamese app publishers in a market that saw 5.6 billion app downloads, generating over US$5 billion in monetisation revenues.
The report said Russia, a top 10 global country for app downloads, exceeds two billion downloads in gaming genres, in-app purchases and subscriptions, with gaming revenues exceeding $1.5 billion.
Valentina Petrova, head of application partnerships at Yandex Advertising Network, a leading ad network in Russian, said: “The Russian market has significant potential for app publishers looking to grow their businesses. App publishers and developers can utilise this opportunity to explore and expand across the region.”
Player preferences there are shifting towards more diverse and immersive gaming experiences, particularly in hyper-casual and casino-style games.
But there are many challenges to overcome.
The first is the limited number of advertising platforms.
Global platforms such as Facebook and Google are unavailable in Russia, creating significant barriers to optimising monetisation.
The second obstacle relates to payments, with international payment systems like Google Play and App Store not operating in the country.
So in-app advertising is the primary choice for app revenues and monetisation for developers and publishers, experts said.
To address the challenges and optimise earnings, they recommended some solutions.
According to Yandex, Vietnamese app publishers need to stay up-to-date with the latest software development kits to ensure compatibility and performance, diversify ad networks, optimise their ad presence by utilising various networks to reach a wider audience, and enhance the user experience by minimising load times through ad caching.
Besides, instead of limiting the ad themes to a single genre, they need to diversify to cater to varied user interests.
But they should avoid sacrificing user experience for ad performance, and strike a balance.
Petrova added: "Yandex always accompanies Vietnamese app publishers in exploring new markets. With its extensive advertising network and user understanding in many different markets, Yandex will not only help publishers operate in the Russian market but also … expand across regions such as the CIS and Middle East." —VNS