14 DAY TRIAL // The Sunnyvale super giant Yahoo adopted a new strategy to support the company's expansion: it opens Internet Cafes in the regions of the world where the residents are not able to access the web at home. Vietnam is one of the countries which now received Yahoo's Internet Cafes which according to Search Engine Journal, provide exclusive access to Yahoo Search and Yahoo Questions and Answers. This latest service is actually the Vietnamese version of Yahoo Answers, the service which encourages the users to ask their questions online and get answers from other members.
The same source reports the new Internet Cafes are located somewhere near Hanoi and Ho Chi Mihn City and is supposed to help the super giant reach new regions where the other giants didn't penetrate yet. Obviously, this is pretty bad news for the local cafes because Yahoo is more attractive for the Vietnam residents than other competitors are. But some of the users are not excited at all about Yahoo's moves and sustain the new Internet Cafes are just stepping into an already full market.
"In Vietnam there are ten thousand of Internet cafe. Adding some new bring nothing good for us. This is only symbolic move for Yahoo, because most Vietnamese people already use Yahoo messenger and mail. Yahoo 360 also dominates blogging platform and social network in Vietnam (second is Opera blog)," Tang, one of the readers of the Search Engine Journal article, stated in a comment. "Local market is flooded with Internet Cafes. However, I see that local Internet shops will be like mom and pop shops, and Yahoo will be the Walmart of Internet Cafes in Vietnam," Alex Le, another reader added.
As far as I can see, this is a pretty nice move made by Yahoo, because Vietnam is one of the countries which might provide some unexpected results to the investors. However, we're still waiting for the other giants' moves to challenge the competition.