Vietnam hungry for more Voice-activated apps

Voice-activated applications continue to gain popularity in Vietnam as the younger generation becomes more tech-savvy due to increased smartphone usage. How will such applications grow? Spire Research and Consulting shared its insights, published on the US Consumer Electronics Association’s blog.

Mobile phones are continually being revolutionized by new features and technologies – witness hands free features and navigation tools. The latest is speech recognition apps. Apple first explored this feature by introducing Siri – a voice-activated assistant – as a built-in feature in iPhone 4S mobile devices in 2011.

Smartphone usage in Vietnam rose from 20% in 2013 to 36% in 2014, which, together with its population of 90 million, has helped place Vietnam on the global map for new mobile app launches.

The growing popularity of Voice-activated apps in Vietnam is visible from a survey conducted in 2014 among 1,168 respondents, where 46% used voice-activated apps as a virtual assistant (search online), 40% for location search and 38% for note taking. Popular apps used by Vietnamese youth include iSago, Apple Siri, VIS, Google Voice Input and Microsoft Cortana.

At the same time, these apps do have constraints. Language is a barrier. Some locals are not able to pronounce certain English words identifiable by the app. Moreover, these apps operate on speech recognition from Nuance or Google where net connectivity is essential, as this impacts speech analysis – requiring strong network coverage, which is not always present in all parts of Vietnam. Background noise can also be an issue. These are some of the pain-points faced by Vietnamese voice-activated mobile apps.

Fortunately, investment by Vietnamese mobile developers into research and development (R&D) to upgrade voice-activated apps has the Vietnamese user community breathing a collective sigh of relief. Developers are working on integrating regional vocal nuances into the apps and adding a more user-friendly interface along with improved navigation.

Vietnamese users have given voice-activated apps high approval ratings on social media and positive comments in application stores. The voice-activated app in Vietnam is buckled up for take-off.

https://www.spireresearch.com/newsroom/media/vietnam-hungry-for-more-voice-activated-apps/

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