How much money does the Vietnamese 'YouTube King' earn?

Shorts are becoming a way to earn millions for many Vietnamese YouTubers. Photo: Internet .

Many YouTube channels in Vietnam, despite having an impressive number of subscribers, are still not too prominent, even though they surpass many famous artists and celebrities such as Son Tung and Crisdevilgamer. These accounts mostly create short, wordless, easy-to-understand content aimed at a global audience.

Since 2023, YouTube has officially integrated Shorts into the Partner Program, allowing creators to earn revenue from the above format. With the help of AI, the production process is not complicated and easy to make money, making the trend of landing on Shorts for international viewers has received much attention from domestic creators.

Earn “billion views” in a few months

Recently, the analytics platform SocialBlade updated the rankings of channels with the highest number of views and subscribers in Vietnam. Famous channels such as Pop Kids and FapTV, despite being famous for many years, have given way to many unfamiliar names, with followers reaching more than half of the Vietnamese population.

Accordingly, the 3 channels with the highest number of subscribers in Vietnam are ToRung (58 million), Ben Eagle (45 million), H&T (25 million). While ToRung and H&T produced their most recent long videos 2 years ago, the Ben Eagle channel, founded in 2021, only has Shorts.

YouTube launched Shorts in 2021 and allowed creators to monetize ads on this format in 2023. After deducting royalties for music, the platform will share 45% of the revenue with creators.

RPM, or revenue per 1,000 views, of Shorts is quite low, only from 0.05-0.3 USD . However, many creators at that time thought the number was still quite attractive, and gradually switched to the platform, according to Forbes . With this formula, accounts like Torung and Ben Eagle can earn hundreds of millions of USD with tens of billions of views earned.

Attractive revenue from YouTube Shorts. Photo: YouTube.

Shorts have contributed greatly to the views and subscribers of the above channels. Thanks to Shorts, BingGo Leaders channel achieved the diamond button after only 2 years, entering the top 21 prestigious YouTube channels globally. "YouTube is not just a place to share content, but a global tool that brings limitless opportunities to those who know how to take advantage of its power," shared Tony Dzung, founder of BingGo Leaders.

He sees YouTube as a potential tool to expand his reach. In addition, the platform offers sustainable income opportunities through advertising revenue, brand partnerships, and the sale of courses and educational materials.

Trinh Cong Tuan, founder of the Ben Eagle channel, credits YouTube as a vehicle for bringing his content to an international audience. He aims to post 12 videos to his channel every day. He shares that his current results come from constantly seizing opportunities and pursuing the common goals of the team.

Unfamiliar with the domestic market

Despite having one of the highest number of followers in Vietnam, these channels are still not widely known by domestic audiences. When searching for influential YouTube channels on search applications, rankings and reputable websites such as METUB Network, Tubrr,FPT do not mention these channels.

ToRung is currently the top subscriber and viewership leader, but it only recently emerged. A snapshot of SocialBlade statistics from a year ago doesn’t even show the channel’s name. Under recent media articles mentioning the channel, most users commenting are either unaware of it or critical of its content.

In fact, the videos on ToRung are all difficult to watch and offensive. The characters include tiny disabled people sitting in cardboard boxes, or “ridiculous” costumes such as wearing wings, going shirtless, dyeing their skin black, and making exaggerated expressions.

ToRung channel homepage with many offensive images. Photo: ToRung/YouTube.

Other channels like H&T and Ben Eagle do not have offensive images, but make situational comedy videos, simple games, or short international trends. Even though they have high views and coverage, brands will not prioritize choosing this content to integrate their products.

Ms. Thu Hoai, a communications specialist working with brands in Ho Chi Minh City, said that subscribers of these channels are mass, not targeting the niche customers that brands are interested in. Another reason comes from the difficulty in controlling the script and product output.

“Before implementing a communication project, brands already have a certain message, topic, and audience. Therefore, they will target accounts that can convey the right message to the desired user group,” said Ms. Hoai.

The craze of making money from short videos is getting easier with the help of AI, which has attracted many people into the field. Not everyone is as lucky as ToRung, Ben Eagle, H&T who know how to seize the moment and switch to investing heavily in Shorts when YouTube is promoting this type of content.

Some YouTubers with high numbers of subscribers such as Huanvn8888 (132,000), Ninh Don (114,000) have opened courses teaching how to get “foreign views” for prices starting from just under one million VND. On related forums on Facebook, many people share about the difficulties in the process of building a channel.

Son Tran, owner of a channel with 10,000 subscribers, said the problem lies in the platform's erratic algorithm, when videos suddenly lose engagement for no apparent reason. In addition, last July, YouTube announced it would review and disable monetization for videos with repetitive, boring content to improve overall quality.

Once they have chosen a global audience, channel owners will be quite dependent on revenue sharing from YouTube. If they consider this a formal job, they will also need to make an effort to produce and post videos regularly to maintain interaction.

Source: https://znews.vn/vua-youtube-viet-kiem-duoc-bao-nhieu-tien-post1574403.html