Moscow based web consulting firm Ashmanov & partners, together with leading Russian financial group Finam and lesser known Kazakhstani real estate developer Kusto, are set to enter the Vietnamese web search market by October, Russian business daily Kommersant wrote on Monday, citing sources close to partners in the venture. The project could receive “several hundred thousand dollars” in seed investment in its initial beta stage, which could be extended to “several million dollars” in financing at a later date.
Earlier this year Nigma.ru, a minor player on the Russian Internet search market, announced that it had plans to make a Vietnamese version of its service available as soon as April 1 under the domain name Itim.vn, meaning “I seek” in Vietnamese. As of this publication, the Itim.vn project still hasn’t been launched and remains under development.
The Vietnamese Internet search market is currently dominated by Google. According to a poll conducted in Vietnam by the research firm Cimigo in November-December 2010, 48% of all respondents had visited Google.
The growing Vietnamese Internet market is generating a strong pull for Oktech firms all over the world. According to official sources cited by Cimigo’s whitepaper, Internet penetration in Vietnam was 31% at the end of 2010. Vietnam has seen a more rapid growth of the Internet over the last few years than most other countries in the Southeast Asia region and is one of the fastest growing Internet countries in the world, the whitepaper reads.
