About Forbes Vietnam

Forbes Vietnam

Overview

Forbes Vietnam is a Vietnamese business magazine published from Ho Chi Minh City at forbes.vn, the licensed Vietnamese edition of the Forbes brand, one of the world's best-known names in business journalism. Published monthly in Vietnamese, with English content on its website, it serves Vietnam's community of chief executives, entrepreneurs, investors and senior managers, offering profiles of successful businesspeople, analysis of companies and markets, and the rankings and lists for which Forbes is famous. Its best-known editorial products include its annual lists of Vietnam's richest people and its Top 50 Best Listed Companies, the 2026 edition of which was published during the year of research for this profile.

Forbes Vietnam matters beyond its readership because of what it represents in Vietnam's business culture. In an economy where private enterprise has grown from a marginal sector to the main engine of growth within a single generation, a magazine that celebrates entrepreneurs, ranks wealth and analyses corporate strategy gives the business class a mirror and a measure. Forbes Vietnam provides that mirror with the authority of a global brand and the local knowledge of a Vietnamese newsroom. It is not a translation of the American magazine: it combines Forbes stories from around the world with original Vietnamese reporting, and its most influential content, its rankings of Vietnamese companies and businesspeople, is produced locally. For readers inside and outside Vietnam, it is one of the principal guides to who matters in Vietnamese business and why.

History

Forbes Vietnam was launched in June 2013, with its launch celebrated in the week of 25 June 2013. It was published under a licensing agreement between Forbes Media LLC, the publisher of Forbes magazine, Forbes Asia and Forbes.com, and Interactive Media, a portfolio company of IDG Ventures Vietnam, in cooperation with Bao Van Hoa, a Vietnamese cultural publication. William Adamopoulos, then chief executive for Asia at Forbes Media, described the launch as an important milestone for Forbes's expansion in the Asia Pacific region, timely given Vietnam's rising economic prospects and its fast-growing community of chief executives, tycoons, philanthropists, investors and aspiring entrepreneurs. Henry Nguyen, chairman of Interactive Media and managing general partner of IDG Ventures Vietnam, said the magazine, its online presence and its conferences would become a forum for leading businesspeople and entrepreneurs in Vietnam. Tran Dang Khoa, editor-in-chief of Bao Van Hoa, said Forbes Vietnam would offer readers useful and practical information about successful businesspeople and their experiences, and stories about entrepreneurship within the business culture and environment of Vietnam.

The initial circulation was 25,000 copies a month, a modest figure by mass-market standards but a substantial one for a specialist business monthly in a country where the private business class was still young. Forbes Vietnam joined a family of licensed Asian editions that already included Forbes China, Forbes Korea, Forbes India, Forbes Indonesia and Forbes Thailand, with a combined Asian circulation reported at the time of around 425,000. From the start, the Vietnamese edition had access to Forbes stories from around the world while producing its own local content from its Vietnamese editorial team, a combination that has remained its model.

Over the following decade, Forbes Vietnam established itself as a fixture of Vietnamese business life. Its lists became reference points: companies publicise their inclusion in the Top 50 Best Listed Companies, and individuals treat a Forbes Vietnam profile as a mark of arrival. The magazine expanded from print into digital publishing at forbes.vn and into events and conferences, following the pattern of Forbes editions worldwide, which combine a magazine, a website and a convening role for the business community. Its continued publication in 2026, including its 2026 Top 50 list, confirms that it has survived the disruption that has affected much of the world's magazine industry, in part because its audience, senior business readers, remains willing to pay attention to a prestige business brand.

Programming and Content

Forbes Vietnam's content is organised around the people, companies and ideas of Vietnamese business. Its signature form is the profile: long, reported accounts of entrepreneurs and chief executives, their careers, their strategies and their views on Vietnam's economy. These profiles are the magazine's most distinctive contribution, because they give Vietnamese business a narrative form that daily news cannot. A reader learns not only that a company grew, but how its founder thought, what risks were taken, and what the founder believes about the future. Alongside profiles, the magazine publishes analysis of sectors, from real estate and banking to technology, manufacturing and consumer goods, and coverage of investment, leadership, technology and affluent lifestyles, reflecting the full Forbes editorial range.

Rankings and lists are Forbes Vietnam's most influential content. The Top 50 Best Listed Companies, published annually, ranks Vietnam's listed companies by criteria that reward sustained performance, and its 2026 edition continued that tradition. The magazine's rich lists, profiling Vietnam's wealthiest individuals, attract wide attention both inside and outside the business community, and they are frequently cited in Vietnamese and international reporting on the country's economy. These lists matter because they create a public, comparable record of business success in an economy where reliable company information can be hard to obtain, and because inclusion in them carries reputational value for the companies and individuals named.

Forbes Vietnam also operates as a convenor. Like other Forbes editions, it organises conferences and events that bring business leaders together, and its website extends its print content with daily business news, video and event coverage. Its English-language web content makes its reporting accessible to foreign readers, investors and journalists who follow Vietnam's economy but do not read Vietnamese. The combination of a monthly print magazine, a continuously updated website and a live events programme gives Forbes Vietnam a presence in Vietnamese business life that is larger than its circulation alone would suggest.

Audience and Reach

Forbes Vietnam's audience is Vietnam's business elite and those who aspire to join it: chief executives, founders, senior managers, investors, bankers and professional advisers, together with the policymakers and journalists who follow them. Company profiles describe it as serving mid to high-level readers interested in economic and financial events, a characterisation that matches its editorial mix and its advertising base, which draws heavily on luxury goods, financial services, real estate and premium consumer brands. Its readers are concentrated in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Vietnam's two business centres, with the magazine based in Ho Chi Minh City.

The magazine's reach is amplified by its lists. A Top 50 ranking or a rich-list profile is reported far beyond the magazine's own pages, in general news sites, on social media and in corporate communications, giving Forbes Vietnam an influence on public conversation about business that exceeds its direct readership. Its initial print circulation of 25,000 copies a month, reported at launch in 2013, is a historical figure, not a current one, and no current audited circulation is asserted in this profile. What can be said is that the brand has sustained a visible position in Vietnamese business media for more than a decade, that its lists continue to be produced and cited in 2026, and that its website, forbes.vn, remains live and current. For a specialist business magazine, that longevity is itself the measure of reach.

Forbes Vietnam's audience also includes international readers. Foreign investors, fund managers and executives considering Vietnam encounter the magazine as a guide to the country's business personalities and corporate landscape, and its English web content serves that readership directly. In that role it functions as a bridge, translating Vietnamese business success into a form that international readers recognise, through a brand they already trust.

Digital Presence

Forbes Vietnam's digital presence is centred on its website, forbes.vn, which carries business news, features, profiles and list content in Vietnamese and English. The website extends the monthly magazine with daily updates, allowing the brand to participate in the news cycle between print issues, and it provides the natural home for its lists and rankings, which readers consult and share online. Social media distribution supports the site, with stories circulating among Vietnamese business readers on Facebook, LinkedIn and other platforms, and video content extending the magazine's profiles and events to online audiences.

The magazine's print edition remains part of its identity, and that matters for a prestige business brand. A monthly glossy magazine, received by subscribers and displayed in offices, carries a status that a website alone does not, and Forbes Vietnam's print presence reinforces its position as a premium business title. Its events programme, including conferences and list-related gatherings, gives the brand a physical presence in Vietnamese business life that complements its print and digital output. Together, print, digital and events form the three legs of the Forbes model as it operates in Vietnam, as elsewhere in the world.

Ownership and Organisation

Forbes Vietnam is a licensed edition, and that distinction is central to understanding it. It is not owned by Forbes Media in the United States, and it is not the American magazine translated into Vietnamese. It is published under a licensing agreement between Forbes Media LLC and Interactive Media, an IDG Ventures Vietnam portfolio company, in cooperation with Bao Van Hoa. The licence gives the Vietnamese publisher the right to use the Forbes brand and to draw on Forbes stories from around the world, while the editorial team in Vietnam produces local content, including its profiles and rankings of Vietnamese businesspeople and companies. That structure is standard for Forbes's international editions, which combine global brand authority with local editorial control.

At launch, the key figures were William Adamopoulos for Forbes Media in Asia, Henry Nguyen for Interactive Media and IDG Ventures Vietnam, and Tran Dang Khoa, editor-in-chief of Bao Van Hoa. No current editor-in-chief or publisher for Forbes Vietnam is named in this profile, because no reliably sourced current holder of those roles has been found. The magazine's operations are based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's commercial capital, which is consistent with its business readership and its advertising base. Readers should understand Forbes Vietnam as a Vietnamese business publication operating under an American licence: its editorial judgements about Vietnamese companies and individuals are made in Vietnam, by a Vietnamese team, under a global brand.

Contact and Availability

Forbes Vietnam is available in print as a monthly magazine and online at forbes.vn, in Vietnamese with English content on the website. Print subscriptions and newsstand availability follow the usual pattern for Vietnamese magazines, and the website is freely accessible to readers with internet access. Its conferences and events are open to the business community on the terms advertised for each event, and its lists and rankings are published in the magazine and on the website.

For readers in Vietnam's business world, Forbes Vietnam is a familiar and continuing presence, and its 2026 Top 50 Best Listed Companies list confirms that it remains active in its second decade. For international readers, it is one of the most accessible guides to Vietnamese business leadership, offering profiles, rankings and analysis through a brand that needs no introduction. Its combination of global prestige and local knowledge is the reason it has endured in a Vietnamese media market where many magazines have not, and it remains a useful first stop for anyone seeking to understand who leads Vietnamese business and how they think.