MoMo: How Vietnam’s 30M-User Wallet Won the Market

MoMo isn’t just Vietnam’s most popular e-wallet. It’s the country’s definitive case study in how a mobile payments startup can grow into a full-blown financial super app — and finally make money doing it. Operated by M_Service and headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, MoMo has more than 30 million users^[1] and posted its first full-year profit in 2024,^[2] with revenue of more than VND 3.3 trillion (about $130 million),^[2] up 27% year on year (DealStreetAsia, 2024).^[2] In a market where MoMo, ZaloPay, and VNPay collectively control an estimated 75% of mobile payment transactions, MoMo holds the single largest share at around 56% (Ken Research, 2025).^[3] That dominance didn’t happen by accident. It took nearly two decades of iteration, hundreds of millions in venture funding, and a willingness to keep burning cash until the unit economics finally turned. MoMo vs ZaloPay: Who’s Winning Vietnam’s Digital Wallet War?

How did MoMo become Vietnam’s dominant e-wallet?

The story starts in 2007,^[4] when co-founders Nguyen Manh Tuong and Nguyen Ba Diep launched M_Service with a simple thesis: Vietnamese consumers shouldn’t need anything beyond a phone when they leave the house. At the time, Vietnam was overwhelmingly cash-based, with banking penetration sitting well below 50% of the adult population. MoMo launched its consumer wallet in 2010,^[5] initially focused on mobile top-ups and peer-to-peer transfers — the two use cases that could drive daily habit formation without requiring merchant infrastructure.

The venture capital trajectory tells its own story. MoMo raised a $100 million Series D led by Goodwater and Warburg Pincus, reported in January 2021,^[6] followed by a $200 million Series E in late 2021 anchored by Mizuho Financial Group, Ward Ferry, and Goodwater Capital.^[7] Total funding stands at approximately $434 million (Crunchbase, 2025).^[8] Each round funded a specific phase of expansion: the Series D built out merchant acceptance and QR code payments, while the Series E financed credit scoring, micro-insurance, and wealth management modules that transformed MoMo from a payments utility into a financial marketplace. The company has been valued at more than $2 billion since the December 2021 Series E,^[9] and as of April 2026, it has hired Jefferies and Morgan Stanley to explore strategic options — including new investors — at a valuation above $2 billion (Reuters, April 2026).^[1]

How does MoMo make money?

For years, the honest answer was “it doesn’t — not on a net basis.“ MoMo burned through venture capital subsidising user acquisition and merchant onboarding, a playbook familiar to anyone who has watched Grab, GoTo, or Sea Group scale across Southeast Asia. That changed in 2024, when MoMo posted its first full-year profit on revenues of more than VND 3.3 trillion (about $130 million).^[2]

Revenue comes from three main streams. The first is transaction fees: MoMo charges merchants a percentage on payments processed through its platform, with over 300,000 payment acceptance points nationwide^[5] and partnerships with 70 banks^[5] and international card networks. The second is financial services distribution. MoMo earns commissions and interest income from consumer lending (including Buy Now Pay Later), insurance sales, fund certificates, and online savings products, all embedded within the app. The third stream is advertising and promotional fees from the tens of thousands of partners — now numbering around 50,000^[5] — who use MoMo’s platform to reach its user base. The 27% revenue growth in 2024,^[2] combined with what the company calls a “strategy shift“ towards profitability, suggests management deliberately throttled the subsidy-fuelled growth that characterised earlier years in favour of margin discipline.

How big is MoMo in Vietnam’s digital payments market?

Big enough to worry its competitors. MoMo is used by 68% of Vietnam’s e-wallet users (Decision Lab, Q1 2023).^[10] Usage data reinforces the dominance: a Cimigo survey found MoMo is used an average of 4.16 times per week,^[11] far outpacing any rival. The broader market context is equally striking. Vietnam’s e-wallet transaction volume exceeded VND 500 trillion (roughly $20 billion) in 2025, a tenfold increase compared to 2017, and the country now has over 232 million payment accounts,^[12] with 59% of daily transactions conducted cashlessly, according to a 2025 survey.^[13]

Vietnam’s government is actively stoking this shift. The Prime Minister’s 2021-2025 non-cash payment scheme (Decision 1813/QD-TTg) targeted 20-25% annual growth in cashless payment transactions,^[14] and in 2025 the government launched a fintech sandbox (Decree 94/2025/ND-CP)^[15] designed to accelerate innovation in credit scoring, open APIs, and digital financial products. For MoMo, this regulatory tailwind is significant: every percentage point of cash transactions converted to digital is a potential revenue opportunity.

What services does MoMo offer beyond payments?

The “super app“ label gets thrown around too casually in Southeast Asian tech. In MoMo’s case, the breadth of services genuinely justifies it. Beyond core payments — peer-to-peer transfers, bill payments, mobile top-ups, QR code purchases — MoMo now operates as a financial services marketplace. Users can access Buy Now Pay Later credit, purchase insurance policies, invest in fund certificates, open savings accounts, and even trade stocks, all without leaving the app.

The lifestyle layer runs deep too. MoMo users book movie tickets, flights, train rides, and hotels directly through the platform. The app integrates charitable donations, loyalty programmes, and a gaming layer that drives engagement among younger users. AI-powered credit scoring — built on transaction data from millions of daily interactions — underpins the lending products, while a five-layer security system addresses the fraud concerns that have historically limited fintech adoption in Vietnam. With over 2,000 employees^[4] and partnerships spanning consumer finance, insurance, ecommerce, travel, and on-demand services, MoMo has built an ecosystem that makes switching costs genuinely high for its most active users.

What are the risks?

Competition is the obvious one. ZaloPay, backed by VNG Corporation, exploits its integration with Vietnam’s dominant messaging platform Zalo to drive in-chat payments, reaching 20 million active users by mid-2025. VNPay focuses on merchant acceptance with instant settlement to more than 450,000 payment acceptance points.^[16] ShopeePay brings the weight of Sea Group’s ecommerce ecosystem. Bank- and telecom-backed payment services add another source of competition. Comparisons of wallet scale should distinguish registered accounts from active users and use a common reporting period.

Regulation is a double-edged sword. The fintech sandbox and cashless push help MoMo’s core business, but tighter compliance requirements — particularly Circular 30/2025 on cashless payment service provision^[17] and Circular 41/2025 on biometric authentication^[18] — raise operating costs and could constrain how aggressively MoMo can scale its lending and insurance products. Any move to restrict cross-selling within super apps, as regulators in other Asian markets have considered, would directly threaten MoMo’s diversification strategy.

Then there is the IPO question. MoMo previously targeted a public listing by 2025,^[1] but that timeline has slipped. The company is now exploring strategic options including new investors, with Jefferies and Morgan Stanley advising.^[1] Whether MoMo ultimately lists in Vietnam, the US, or pursues a trade sale will shape its growth trajectory for the next decade.

What is the outlook for MoMo?

The fundamentals are strong. Vietnam has a population of more than 100 million, a median age of about 33, smartphone use above 80%,^[19] and a government that actively wants to kill cash. MoMo has the largest user base, the deepest feature set, and — as of 2024 — a proven ability to generate profit. The $2 billion-plus valuation currently on the table^[1] reflects a business that has survived the Southeast Asian fintech funding winter and emerged in better shape than most.

The question isn’t whether MoMo will remain Vietnam’s leading e-wallet. It almost certainly will, at least through the end of the decade. The real question is whether it can convert super app ambition into durable financial returns — whether the lending, insurance, and investment products can generate enough margin to justify the platform investment, and whether the next capital event (IPO, strategic sale, or fresh private round) sets MoMo up for regional expansion or locks it into a Vietnam-only story.

The $200 million Series E round, announced in December 2021,^[7] funded credit scoring, micro-insurance, and wealth modules — products with significantly higher margins than payments processing alone. If those verticals scale, MoMo’s revenue mix shifts from low-margin transaction fees towards higher-margin financial services distribution, which is exactly the trajectory that turned Ant Group and KakaoPay into genuinely profitable platforms. Vietnam’s fintech sandbox, effective from July 2025,^[15] should accelerate that shift by providing regulatory clarity for open API-based lending and data-sharing products.

For now, the growth trajectory speaks for itself. More than 30 million users, about $130 million in revenue,^[2] and a first-ever profit aren’t bad for a company that started by helping people top up their phone credit.

Data sources: DealStreetAsia (MoMo 2024 profit report); Ken Research (Vietnam Mobile Payments Market Outlook 2029); Cimigo (Vietnam super app usage survey); State Bank of Vietnam (cashless payments statistics 2025); Reuters/TechStartups (MoMo valuation and strategic review, April 2026); Crunchbase/Tracxn (funding history); Vietnam Investment Review (e-wallet market data).