2010 is a truly bustling year for the anti-virus software market in Vietnam. A lot of new foreign made software has appeared in Vietnam, while domestic software suppliers and existing foreign suppliers have been trying to expand their market share.

More and more foreign made products penetrating domestic market

German Avira Company has become the “new comer” on Vietnam’s market when it has appointed Vietnamese Cay Du Do Service Company as the distributor of its products in late September.

In mid 2010, Spanish Panda Security officially set foot in Vietnam after 20 years of operation with offices located in 195 countries worldwide. Panda Security, the official representative in Indochina, launched an anti-virus software for individual users.

Several years ago, when penetrating Vietnam’s market, the US Symantec only focused on providing Norton Antivirus, the security solution and anti-virus software for businesses and government agencies, while it did not pay much attention to individual clients. However, the company has changed its mind in the last two or three years and has targeted individual clients as well. To date, Symantec has had three distributors in Vietnam.

According to distributors, Karpersky anti-virus software remains the best seller among foreign products thanks to their market access strategy and the availability of a Vietnamese version.

McAfee, BitDefender and Trend Micro have also set up their distribution network in Vietnam. However, the companies have not taken strong actions to attract Vietnamese customers.

Domestic products try to dominate home market

A recent survey conducted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) on businesses from 63 provinces and cities showed that Vietnamese Bkav anti-virus software is the choice of 74 percent of enterprises. Thirteen percent of businesses choose Kaspersky, and nine percent of businesses choose Norton Antivirus.

Though Bkav is still leading the market, the brand owner still makes large investments to conquer the market. Clients, who buy Bkav, have the opportunity to get the gifts which are Sony Vaio computers, Nokia E72 mobile phones. The owner of Bkav also keeps a big budget to advertise its product on mass medias and regularly hold press conferences at big events.

Speaking about the competition of made-in-Vietnam products, both Nguyen Tu Quang, General Director of BKIS, the owner of Bkav, and Trieu Tran Duc, General Director of CMC, said Vietnamese products are fully capable of competing with foreign products.

Competition bring benefit to clients

Quang noted that about 1.5 million new computers are sold every year, and there are 20 million computer users. At least 10 million computers have Internet connection and have the demand for anti-virus software. Therefore, Vietnamese market holds a real potential for product suppliers

Avira is now offering a very competitive price, at 150,000 dong, for every anti-virus software version. On October 1-7, Avira gave 1000 free 3-month copyrighted Avira Premium Security Suite version to the clients who registered to buy products on www.caydudo.com. In an effort to more effectively penetrate Vietnam’s market, Avira plans to launch the Vietnamese version next year.

Meanwhile, Panda’s products have the lowest price in Vietnam, at 110,000 dong for a Panda AV.

Kaspersky has reduced the sale price from 200,000 dong to 150,000 dong. Bkav is still selling at 299,000 dong, but customers can enjoy discounts when they buy three products.

Meanwhile, Symantec does not reduce sale prices and offer sale promotion programme. It has been trying to develop its technology. While other companies are selling the anti-virus versions for 2010, Symantec has launched 2011 Norton version with many features.

Source: Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon