Viet Nam's first unicorn named among 10 Asian companies to watch in 2023: Nikkei Asia

The recent articled released by Nikkei Asia noted that VNG, Viet Nam's first unicorn, has emerged as one of the country's most watched companies, with a possible initial public offering this year. 

The tech company has registered to trade some of its shares on a local exchange for unlisted firms, a move that is often used for companies to test the stock market before their official IPO. VNG is also reportedly eyeing a U.S. listing.

VNG has become one of Southeast Asia's rising tech stars, offering services from gaming, messaging and mobile payments to artificial-intelligence voice assistants and cloud computing.

Founded in 2004, VNG started out as an online game publisher and developer called Vinagame. The company's cash cow business has expanded to other Asian markets, where it competes with rivals like Singapore-based Sea. 

With users in more than 130 countries, VNG aims to reach 320 million customers globally in 2023.

The Vietnamese tech company has expanded to other areas, most notably with Zalo, its messenger app launched in 2012. The service overtook Meta's Facebook Messenger in Viet Nam in 2020 and now has over 74 million active users in its home market, where the app is used to chat, shop, send money and pay household bills.

After defending its home market from other tech giants and expanding regionally, VNG wants to accelerate its international expansion, which a U.S. market debut would facilitate.