The number of Facebook users in Vietnam has grown 200% in 12 months to reach more than 8.5 million people, meaning Facebook could have already overtaken local social network Zing to become number 1 in Vietnam.

WeAreSocial, a Singapore-based digital, PR organization released a report on 17 October in which it analyzed digital trends in Vietnam which it calls “one of Asia’s most exciting markets”.

Accordingly, Vietnam’s social, digital and mobile landscape is evolving at an astonishing rate, with internet users in the country increasing by 5% since WeAreSocial’s last report at the end of 2011.

Out of a population of over 90 million, Vietnam has:

Almost 31 million internet users, representing penetration of 34%;

A massive 129 million mobile subscriptions, representing penetration of 139%;

19 million mobile internet users, equating to penetration of around 21%;

As the figures above suggest, feature phones still dominate Vietnam’s mobile landscape, but smartphone use is definitely on the rise.

The organization also noted a reduction in the number of mobile subscriptions since our last report, but given that subscription penetration still sits at around 139%, this likely reflects a consolidation towards a single active subscription per user rather than a drop in mobile use.

Below are other data from wearesocial.sg:

30,858,742 Internet users in Vietnam;

Internet penetration in Vietnam is around 34%, higher than the global average of 33%;

Growth in internet users in Vietnam in 2012 5%;

95% of Vietnamese people aged 15-24 have access to the Internet;

73% of Vietnam’s Internet users are under 35;

66% of Vietnamese netizens use the web everyday;

Vietnamese netizens spend an average of 29 hours on the Internet each month;

88% go online from home, as opposed to 36% who go online from webcafes;

95% of Vietnam’s Internet users visit online news sites;

86% of Vietnamese Internet users visit social networking sites;

19% of Vietnamese netizens use social networks everyday;

28% of Vietnamese netizens have a Facebook account while 27% of Vietnamese netizens have a Zing account;

A new user from Vietnam joins Facebook every 3 seconds;

24% of Vietnam’s netizens have a YouTube account;

On average, everyone in Vietnam has around 1.4 mobile subscriptions;

The most dramatic change in the country’s digital landscape this year has been the shift in power in social media. Just 12 months ago, there were only 2.9 million Facebook users in Vietnam; today, there are more than 8.5 million – a growth of almost 200%.

Data from Facebook itself suggests that the network’s user base in the country has grown by 500,000 in the past 2 weeks alone.

Up until last week, the leader in the country’s social media scene was local network Zing, which claims around 8.2 million users.

Although these latest official user numbers for Zing are a few months old and actual users may have increased since, it appears that Facebook has taken the number 1 spot in Vietnam.