Vietnam vs Thailand: Where Should Your App Marketing Budget Go in 2026?

Data: FoxData API snapshot, 2026-08-20. Search index = relative popularity of a keyword in the App Store.

Every SEA growth team asks the same question: Vietnam or Thailand first? Rankings tell you what's winning today; search demand tells you where the next users are.

Here's the demand side of the answer, straight from App Store search index data:

Keyword	Vietnam	Thailand	Gap
game	76	70	VN +6
video	51	48	VN +3
shopping	46	45	VN +1

What this means

Vietnam out-searches Thailand on every major category term. Not by a little on the big ones: "game" demand is ~9% higher in Vietnam. For user acquisition teams, this is a budget reallocation signal:

1. Gaming apps — Vietnam's stronger game search demand matches its younger demographic profile. UA testing budgets should skew VN first.
2. Video/streaming — A smaller but consistent edge; worth A/B testing creatives in VN before scaling TH.
3. Shopping — Nearly even. This is the market where local competition (Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop) dominates, so search demand alone doesn't decide — keyword coverage does (see part 1 of this series: Temu's keyword blitz).

Caveats before you reallocate

• Search index ≠ downloads. High demand with brutal competition can mean higher CPI. Pair this data with ranking and download estimates before moving budget.
• Seasonality matters. Q4 shopping spikes hit both markets; run this comparison monthly, not once.
• Category nuance. Demand is category-specific — always pull per-category indexes, not the global chart.

How to keep this updated

This isn't a one-time analysis. The same comparison is one call to the FoxData API away, every day:

import requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.foxdata.com/apiv1/open-api/app/search-index-ranking",
    json={"regions": ["VN", "TH"], "keywords": ["game", "video", "shopping"], "store": "AS"},
    headers={"x-openapi-key": "<YOUR_LICENSE>"},
)
print(r.json()["data"]["result"])

Run it weekly, append to a sheet, and you get a moving picture of where SEA demand is heading — before the reports do.

Discussion

Questions or collaboration? Reach me at [e-mail].

Are you running apps in Vietnam or Thailand right now? Which market surprised you — in a good or bad way? Let me know in the comments, and I'll dig into specific categories for the next post.

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Sample data from FoxData API snapshot, 2026-08-20. Get API access at foxdata.com/en/app-data-api.

More from this series

• Sea App Market Watch
• Vn Vs Th Market

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