Vietnamese digital content enters the international market: Opportunities and challenges

(Dan Tri) - The famous animated film produced and copyrighted by Vietnam has been officially licensed by the Chinese National Broadcasting Administration to be broadcast on television systems throughout the country of a billion people.

Are "Vietnamese goods" strong enough to conquer demanding markets?

Young people in Vietnam are all familiar with famous anime characters such as Doraemon, the robot cat, or Son Goku from the Dragon Ball manga series. It can be said that these images have been associated with the childhood of countless generations.

In the field of television dramas, we are also familiar with "big" films such as Game of Thrones (USA), Dae Jang Geum (Korea), and Journey to the West (China).

However, when it comes to digital content, Vietnamese digital television going international, we have almost no bright faces.

Wolfoo is produced at Sconnect's studio in Hanoi (Photo: Minh Dang).

However, despite the remaining difficulties and challenges, Vietnamese digital products are still highly appreciated, even very highly, in terms of content and value.

Recently, the character Wolfoo and the cartoon "Wolfoo Happy Family" have been officially approved to be broadcast on Chinese television, with a duration of 3 minutes per episode, a total of 100 episodes.

As we know, China is the most populous country in the world , and also the country with the most developed cultural industry. Therefore, the fact that a "made in Vietnam" animation product conquered this market marked the development of the Vietnamese animation content production industry in particular, and the Vietnamese content creation industry in general.

"Chinese kids love the animated film Wolfoo," said Brie Yan, Global Marketing Director of Leadjoy, Sconnect's strategic partner in the Chinese market.

Experts say that we are not lacking in value, creativity and originality in digital content production. The problem is just finding ways to promote and be more bold in stepping out of the domestic market.

Why is it difficult for Vietnamese digital products to go international?

The cartoon character Wolfoo, owned by Sconnect, is the victim of a long-running copyright dispute with the character Peppa Pig (Photo: Sconnect).

Sharing about the potential of the digital content creation market at the Conference "Vietnamese Digital Technology Enterprises Going Global" in February, Mr. Nguyen Thien Nghia, Deputy Director of the Department of Information Technology and Communications Industry ( Ministry of Information and Communications ), said that the digital content creation sector is growing very rapidly in Vietnam and will have a revenue of about 800 million USD by 2022.

On YouTube alone, data in 2022 shows that the number of Vietnamese people making money from social media platforms is up to 20,000 people, bringing in foreign currency revenue equivalent to about 1,500 billion VND. Vietnam currently has nearly 500 YouTube channels with gold buttons (more than 1 million subscribers) and 8 channels with diamond buttons (over 10 million subscribers).

According to Dr. Nguyen Minh Hong, Chairman of the Vietnam Digital Communications Association, the field of digital content creation in Vietnam is inherently a field that the State is interested in promoting development.

However, there are still some barriers and problems that need to be resolved, especially the issue of inappropriate corporate income tax, personal income tax, and value added tax.

At the forum on Digital Content Creation, Digital Copyright Protection and Digital Advertising, Mr. Ta Manh Hoang, Chairman of the Vietnam Digital Content Creation Alliance (DCCA), CEO of Sconnect Vietnam, pointed out the challenges and difficulties of Vietnamese enterprises operating in this field.

According to him, the number of start-ups is large but small in scale and short in duration. Specifically, by the end of 2022, Vietnam has about 3,800 start-ups, ranking 54th in the global start-up ecosystem, but only 50% of startups survive after 5 years of operation.

Mr. Ta Manh Hoang, CEO of Sconnect, said that for many years, Vietnamese businesses have had to "work and fumble" and often encounter major obstacles regarding intellectual property rights (Photo: Nguyen Nguyen).

That leads to the fact that Vietnam is seriously lacking in high-quality human resources in the role of general engineers, with a comprehensive vision for product design - multi-line, multi-field like the 360 ​​product model of Japan - Korea - America.

Besides, users' awareness of digital content products is not high, they are easily drawn into negative products that do not bring much value and do not respect copyright.

In addition, the lack of a legal corridor to protect and enhance the position of businesses in the international arena, and the lack of protection plans against possible disputes, are also factors contributing to the suppression of the resilience of businesses in the digital content sector.

Dantri.com.vn