“Why do tides (high and low tides) occur?”
On Dec. 7 (local time), My Khe Beach, one of the major attractions in Da Nang, Vietnam. Online geography instructor Trần Văn Tài was filming content while strolling along the beach.
Tài is an instructor associated with the South Korean style (K) online academy "Quanda Study," launched by the domestic startup Masspresso in Vietnam.
Masspresso's main business operates the mobile application (app) "Quanda," which provides explanations and related content within 5 seconds when a user takes a photo of an unknown problem with their smartphone, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for interpretation. Noting the high educational enthusiasm similar to South Korea, it entered the local market in December 2019 with the release of the Vietnamese app.
As of December 2024, marking the 5th anniversary of its launch, the number of subscribers to the Quanda app reached approximately 27 million, nearly three times more than in South Korea. The number of students studying through Quanda each month (monthly active users - MAU) is also around 3 million, peaking at up to 3.5 million during exam periods. There are times when it surpasses the MAU of the local super app "Grab."
"Quanda Study" is a business model that Masspresso introduced additionally in Vietnam in the second half of 2021. It started with online classes using real-time broadcasts and has now expanded to selling books authored by star instructors on TikTok Shop. This month, they plan to open an integrated website where all services including online real-time classes, video on demand (VOD), and books can be purchased and accessed.
The target demographic consists of middle and high school students with smartphones, accounting for 20% of the school-age population, which includes education from kindergarten through high school graduation. Vietnam also has a "high school graduation exam" similar to the College Scholastic Ability Test.
The head of Masspresso Vietnam, Lee Young-woong, was recently interviewed in writing. He noted, "The school-age population in Vietnam is expected to grow over the next 10 years," and added, "Considering that the college enrollment rate is increasing by 5% annually and the gross domestic product (GDP) is continuously growing, the education market in Vietnam has very high growth potential."
One of the key strategies of "Quanda Study" is to nurture "South Korean-style star instructors." A representative success story is literary instructor Sương Mai, who had only 50 students three years ago and has now grown into a prominent star instructor in Vietnam with 20,000 annual students.
To enhance the brand recognition of instructors, Quanda utilized various channels including a Facebook fan page (260,000 followers) as well as a TikTok channel (537,000 followers), in addition to online platforms like Spotify podcasts. It also held offline mentoring lectures for career and college admissions (Q-talk) attended by 400-500 people in Hanoi.
Masspresso Vietnam is building a nationwide instructors databases. The head noted, "We are standardizing the success stories of star instructors like Mai into a manual and benchmarking promising instructors to grow each instructor's brand," adding that it goes beyond marketing support to include vocal training, appearance consulting, and collecting and reflecting student feedback on classes, with training taking about three months from the start of joining Quanda Study.
Currently, Quanda Vietnam has a total of 9 star instructors and has debuted 4 promising new instructors nurtured in this way this month. They aim to discover and bring at least 20 additional promising instructors to the stage next year.
They are looking to create a hybrid learning space (QANDA STUDY MEE) that combines online star instructors with offline instruction. The first MEE center established in the outskirts of Hanoi provides a self-study space where tablets are rented and unlimited access to all VOD lectures is available. It operates with around 15 students, with teaching assistants available to provide explanations.
The head noted, "There is still a strong perception in Vietnam that instructional activities in offline spaces are preferable," and added, "I believe that providing top-level online education services in an appropriate setting is a way to change this perception, and we are trying to do that."
The online education market in Vietnam continues to grow. Specifically, in the college entrance examination market where Quanda is focusing, the potential is vast. According to Masspresso, the current size of private education for college entrance exams is 23 trillion dong (approximately 1.3 trillion won) annually, of which the online education market is estimated to be 1 trillion dong (approximately 55 billion won). The market share of the overall online education market, based on revenue, is only about 3%.
The head emphasized, "In the Vietnamese market, Masspresso Vietnam aims to create online and offline education services that students preparing for the high school graduation exam would naturally use, based on its understanding of educational services in South Korea and experience in creating the most widely used educational app in the Vietnamese market."