A fresh Russian-Vietnamese search engine seeks to challenge Google's dominance in Vietnam. Coc Coc, which means “Knock Knock”, is a Vietnamese-language search engine developed some 2 years ago and recently launched in February 2013. The company sees Vietnam as a viable market because of the country’s vast potential for growth, its young population and good Internet infrastructure. Close to a third of the country’s population of 90 million are actively using the internet either for browsing, work, socialization, e-payment and other services.Currently Google is the top search engine in Vietnam, and according to Alexa, the number one website in the country. However, Coc Coc believes it has more to offer.

The company is capitalizing on the fact that it has a better understanding of the Vietnamese language, something Google doesn’t do so well. Over time, it has been seen that google haven’t completely adapted to the tricky local dialect. Since Google’s crawlers are also outside Vietnam, its links are weak. Coc Coc’s algorithms make for quicker, more valuable search results in Vietnamese.Another advantage Coc Coc has over Google having an office and full-force of staff in Vietnam. The company is currently based in Hanoi and intends to put up an office in Ho Chi Minh city by summer.Google dominates search worldwide except for a handful of markets in Eastern Europe and Asia where local companies are fairing so much better, such as Baidu in China, Naver in South Korea and Yandex in Russia. Seeing google trail behind them is also something Coc Coc wants to happen in Vietnam.

They are, however, also aware that there is another homegrown search engine, Wada, which they need to put of the picture. Launched in November of the previous year, Wada is also Russian-funded.The greater challenge lies on the competition with google. Toppling an American Giant is a difficult task. But with the ridiculous amount of investment Coc Coc is pumping up, looks like they can very well put up a good fight.By far, the company has invested around $15 million since the project began and employed 400 staff comprised of locals and a handful of foreigners, mostly Russians.

It is prepared to spend some $100 million more over the next five years to capture a share of the existing 97 per cent of Vietnamese online surfers who currently use Google.Coc Coc is currently developing a feature called the “Pho Xa 360 feature” which works similarly like Google StreetView. Such service has currently not been implemented by Google in Vietnam. They also intend to develop a mobile platform of their search engine.Vietnam's booming Internet scene is littered with failed start-ups that tried to take on Google. With loads of cash to burn and the impressive experts behind the company, looks like Coc Coc might indeed have a shot on this. Google, on the other hand, welcomes the competition.