Vietnam ’s online advertising market has posted a higher growth rate than the global average, said Cimigo - an independent team of marketing and brand research specialists in the Asia-Pacific region.

In its "Vietnam’s Online Advertising Revenue Report 2009" released recently, Cimigo said that the total revenues from online advertising in the country in 2009 were estimated at 15.5 million USD, up 71 percent from the previous year.

However, the study, which is based on a large survey of online publishers and media agencies and is the first of its kind in Vietnam, pointed out that the full potential of Vietnam’s online advertising market has not yet been tapped into and its growth rate has failed to keep up with the country’s economic expansion.

The Internet plays an increasingly important role in Vietnamese people’s lives, but advertising via the Internet in Vietnam only makes up a small part of the total investment in advertising compared with other regional countries.

According to statistics produced in 2008, online advertising accounted for just 1.5 percent of the advertising market share, while television and publications held over 80 percent of the total.

More than a half of the Vietnamese population have access to the Internet and spend hours surfing it every week, said Cimigo’s Online Director Lukas Mira, adding that, advertisers still remain doubtful about using this method of advertising to approach customers.

Industry experts are optimistic about the prospects for the development of the online advertising market as the number of Internet users is rising fast. A study conducted by the Vietnam Internet Centre shows that more than 23 million Vietnamese people, equivalent to 27 percent of the total population, have regular access to the Internet and go online every day.

However, Nguyen Hung, Director of the Kiemviec.com Company, said that in the recent past, online advertising had been controversially preferred to advertising in the printed press, as most Internet users are higher than average income earners and like to shop. Moreover, online advertising costs much less than conventional forms of advertising, he said.

But now, a number of multi-national automobile and mobile phone manufactures such as Ford, Toyota and Nokia, are making the most of the advantages of online advertising, added Hung./.