'Provincial-city merger'... is the hottest keyword in the first quarter of 2025

Record searches focused on important political and social events, while traditional culture maintained its position... Specifically, administrative reform policies, especially the merger of provinces and cities and the streamlining of the state apparatus, received special attention from the public. In particular, the keyword "merging provinces and cities" increased by 439%.

According to Coc Coc representative, in the first quarter of 2025, the public paid special attention to administrative reform policies, especially the merger of provinces and cities and the streamlining of the state apparatus. Search data recorded a 162% increase in keywords related to "merging ministries", "reducing ministries", "streamlining the apparatus", while "merging provinces and cities" skyrocketed by 439%. This reflects the people's deep interest in major government decisions.

In addition, traffic is also a hot topic with the number of searches for “cold fines” increasing by 170.3% after the Ministry of Public Security’s VNeTraffic application officially came into operation. At the same time, the level of interest in new regulations in the Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety No. 36/2024/QH15 also increased sharply, demonstrating people’s initiative in updating legal information. Along with that, concerns about cross-border fraud continued to increase in the first quarter of the year.

The number of searches for the keyword “Cambodia scam” increased by 378%, stemming from a series of cases related to illegal labor enticement. Many victims were tricked into going to Cambodia with the promise of easy work and high salaries, but in reality were forced to participate in online fraud activities. This reality raises an urgent need to raise public awareness and tighten management of migrant workers. People need to be especially vigilant against attractive invitations from abroad to avoid becoming victims of fraud rings.

According to Coc Coc, the first quarter of 2025 witnessed a strong spread of the wave of honoring Vietnamese traditional costumes. The event "Vietnamese Tet - Street Tet 2025" in Hanoi attracted more than 400 young people parading in traditional costumes, while Ho Chi Minh City made its mark with the 5th "Bach Hoa Bo Hanh" on March 8. Notably, the concert "Anh Trai Vuon Ngan Cong Gai" on March 22, 2025 in Thu Duc City set a Guinness World Record with more than 5,000 audiences wearing Ao Dai, Ao Ngu Than, Ao Tu Than and national costumes. This trend is also clearly reflected in the sharp increase in searches for the keywords "co phuc" (7%), "bach hoa bo hanh" (106%) and "ao tac" (37%), affirming the pride of young people in preserving national cultural identity.

The song “Bac Bling” made a strong impression when combining young artists with veteran names, creating a special attraction. The number of searches related to “Hoa Minzy”, “Bac Bling”, “Xuan Hinh” and “Tuan Cry” increased by 600%. In addition, artist Ca Nuong Kieu Anh also attracted attention after performing “Co Doi Thuong Ngan” at the program “Chi Dep Dap Gio 2024”. This performance not only increased the number of searches for “ca nuong Kieu Anh” by 49.4% but also started a trend of recreating the image of Co Doi Thuong Ngan on TikTok.

The first quarter of 2025 witnessed many scandals related to false advertising and lack of transparency in charity activities. On March 20, 2025, the authorities punished the act of false advertising for the product "Kera vegetable candy", causing the number of searches for "Hang Du Muc" to increase by 270% and "Nguyen Thuc Thuy Tien" to increase by 27%.

Meanwhile, TikToker Pham Thoai faced suspicions of lack of transparency in managing the donation fund for the sick child Bap, causing searches for "Pham Thoai" to increase by 153% and "bap's mother" to increase by 13,100%.

The field of artificial intelligence continues to attract attention, especially AI chat tools. Besides ChatGPT, “DeepSeek” and “Grok” emerged as two formidable competitors with search growth of 274,686% and 9,080% respectively.

Some of the remaining topics mentioned in the report include sports, vehicles, finance, real estate, travel, and e-commerce, which also saw increases in searches.