Vietnam Insider

Supermarkets in Vietnam are offering services via mobile applications with many discounts and promotions during the busy shopping season of Tet, or the Lunar New Year holiday that is only a week away.

The retail chains’ catching up with the digital shopping trend not only brings convenience to customers but also helps them avoid wasting time queuing for checkouts at the brick-and-mortar outlets.

The weeks before Tet, which begins on February 2, is normally a nationwide shopping spree, with supermarkets packed with buyers and cashier desks flooded with people standing next to fully-loaded shopping carts.

Some supermarkets have thus developed mobile apps that allow consumers to stay at home and enjoy shopping with multiple payment options and free delivery at their chosen time.

The items available for purchase on these platforms include not only fashion and household appliances but also fresh and frozen foods, and Tet treats.

Vietnam’s leading supermarket chain Co.opmart, for instance, has taken advantange of the QR (quick response) scanning code technology to help its customers shop anytime, anywhere with their mobile devices.

Customers only need to use their smartphones to scan the QR codes on Co.opmart’s shopping brochures, webpages and advertisements at bus stations to select the items they want to buy.

The supermarket chain has so far issued some 600,000 shopping brochures with QR codes, according to marketing manager Do Quoc Huy.

Foreign players such as South Korea’s Lotte Mart and Japanese Aeon Mall also have their own online shopping apps to meet Vietnamese consumers’ need.

Another leading retailer from South Korea, Emart, is listing nearly one-third of its products, equivalent to 9,000 out of more than 30,000 items available at the chain’s physical locations, on its mobile app, according to marketing manager Le Huu Tinh.

Retailers that allow customers to shop online offer numerous promotions and discounts to encourage purchases as well.

For instance, Emart offers discounts of ten to 20 percent on Tet gift hampers bought via the app, and price reductions between 30 and 40 percent for drinks purchased online.

Thanks to these attractive offers, fresh products such as fruits and vegetables have understandably become the best-selling category on the Emart app, followed by beverages including beer, milk, and soft drinks, Tinh said.

The marketing manager added these are impressive results, given the fact that Vietnamese consumers normally buy these products offline.

As these customers are all loyal members of Emart, they may already know about the product quality, so it does not matter whether they shop via the app or at the stores, he said.

While the mobile apps help shoppers avoid queuing at checkout counters during the peak shopping days of the Tet holiday, they also allow retailers to reduce crowding at their locations and enable them to have better goods management.

According to a director of a large supermarket chain, retailers have to invest more in facilities and human resources, especially in customer care, to offer better online sales to customers.

“When a supermarket has a clear set of standards on its goods quality and adequately follow it, it is not necessary [for consumers] to go to the place of purchase,” the director said.

Source: Tuoitrenews

The massive import of cheap cars did not occur in 2018 as predicted, but sales in 2018 were still satisfactory, especially domestically sold cars.

According to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA), its member companies sold 288,683 cars in 2018, an increase of 5.8 percent over 2017.

Hyundai Thanh Cong, which is not a VAMA member, sold 63,526 cars, an increase of 103 percent.

Automobile assemblers had a successful year in 2018. Hyundai Thanh Cong doubled its sales. VAMA members assembled 215,704 cars, up by 10.6 percent compared with 2017.

Among the 10 best selling models, Toyota Vios had the most impressive sales, with 27,188 cars sold, followed by Hyundai Grand i10 with 22,068 cars sold.

Due to the modest imports, nine out of 10 bestsellers were assembled in Vietnam.

Bios, Grand i10 and Innova were among the bestsellers. Accent was fifth in the list of best sellers.

The upgraded version of Accent was launched in Vietnam last April, with 12,537 cars sold, exceeding Honda City, its direct rival in B-size sedan segment. Other domestically assembled such as Hyundai Kona and Mitsubishi Outlander also sold well.

Unlike domestically assembled cars, imports had a bad year. Decree 116 with barriers on VTA certificate led to a 6.2 percent drop in car imports to 72,979.

Vietnamese consumers thought if importers could satisfy the strict requirements stipulated in Decree 116, they would be able to buy cars at reasonable prices. But this did not happen in 2018. Predictions about import car prices change regularly.

Decree 116, released on October 17, 2017, stipulates the conditions for production, assembly, import and business of automobile warranty and maintenance services.

Of the 10 bestsellers in 2018, Honda CR-V was the only import, while Toyota Fortuner and Ford Ranger, familiar names, were not on the list of bestsellers.

More imports arrived in the last months of 2018, when importers could satisfy Vietnam’s requirements on procedures. In December, 14,000 products were imported, raising the total imports to 81,000.

Regarding market share, the three top positions still belonged to familiar names – Truong Hai, Toyota and Hyundai Thanh Cong.

Truong Hai, with Kia, Thaco Bus, Thaco Truck, Mazda, Peugeot and BMW brands, holds 27.3 percent of market share. Toyota is second with 18.7 percent, and Hyundai Thanh Cong 18 percent.

Big changes in the car market are expected in 2019, when more cars from VinFast, a Vietnamese brand, will hit the market.

Source: VNN

Two sign strategic partnership to bring more value to customers using the GrabFood service when ordering McDonald’s.

Grab Vietnam has a strategic cooperation agreement with McDonald’s Vietnam to provide more exciting experiences and incentives as well as bring more value to customers when using the GrabFood service.

Grab users will receive special offers when ordering McDonald’s dishes on the GrabFood platform. With an average delivery time of just 25 minutes and a team of well-trained drivers, GrabFood commits that McDonald’s orders will be delivered to customers quickly and at a cheaper cost.

Grab’s Platinum members will also receive a 10 per cent discount on the total McDonald’s bill when exchanging five GrabRewards points.

Grab and McDonald’s Vietnam will exploit more utilities from the strategic partnership. Some programs exchanged by the two parties, such as using GrabExpress’s partner team, will help McDonald’s save costs and resources in transport.

The cooperation will also help Grab and McDonald’s attract more customers through taking advantage of a number of McDonald’s systems to become pick-up / drop-off locations and provide parking for Grab driver partners.

Grab and McDonald’s Vietnam have had other short-term cooperation activities, such as McDonald’s sponsoring International Women’s Day celebrations organized by Grab to congratulate female driver partners and female staff working at Grab, who received free McDonald’s coupons.

Southeast Asia’s leading O2O mobile platform, Grab officially launched its on-demand food delivery service, GrabFood, on October 2 in Hanoi, while in Ho Chi Minh City it was beta tested on May 10 and officially launched in June.

The launch not only marks an important milestone in Grab’s journey towards becoming the leading everyday super app that offers Vietnamese and Southeast Asian consumers the most essential daily services, but also reaffirms its commitment to long-term investment in Vietnam as a tech company.

The world’s leading fast-food retailer, McDonald’s, arrived in Vietnam in 2014 with a developmental licensee, a franchising model that is used in many markets around the world to grow the McDonald’s brand. After more than three years in Ho Chi Minh City, McDonald’s then opened its first restaurant in Hanoi, at 2 Hang Bai Street.

The McDonald’s chain in the country has been recording growth of nearly 40 per cent each year and now has 17 restaurants. The locations selected for its expansion are strategically located in the CBDs of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, where there are a large number of potential customers.

Source: Vneconomictimes

Speed and technology have become potent ingredients in Vietnam’s sizzling food delivery market.

Vietnam’s food delivery market has been boosted by e-commerce and become fiercely competitive and efficient, with delivery times shortened from one day to two hours then 60 minutes.

A report from Havas Riverorchid revealed that 63 per cent of consumers choose “convenience” and “quick” as reasons for using delivery services.

The latest report from the GCOMM market research company, which covered 600 people in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, found that 96 per cent of respondents said delivery speed was the most important factor in making a choice about food delivery services.

The survey also rated GrabFood as the No. 1 food delivery service in terms of speed, with about 80 per cent of customers agreeing that GrabFood is the fastest food delivery service in Vietnam.

This result surprised everyone, because GrabFood is classified as a newcomer compared with other food delivery services in the market such as Now.vn and Vietnammm. To take the lead in the speed race with an average of 20 minutes, Grab relied on its own certain advantages.

“Firstly, GrabFood gets a huge amount of data from its parent company, with a wide network of merchant-partners (up ten-fold since June), and a large number of driver-partners in the market,” said Mr. Jerry Lim, Country Head of Grab in Vietnam.

In addition, GrabFood also benefits from Grab’s technology ecosystem. Users can book GrabCar or GrabBike to go to work, send goods by GrabExpress, order food via GrabFood, and make payments with GrabPay by Moca. Moreover, Grab also introduced its GrabReward feature to reward loyal customers with preferential and rewarding policies.

GrabFood’s delivery speed is also determined by GrabBike’s large driver-partner volume, meaning that GrabFood has a massive number of delivery partners in advance.

“The wide and dense network of driver-partners gives us special advantages,” Mr. Lim said. “GrabFood’s next goal is to strengthen the merchant-partner system so that customers can find the nearest restaurants, further shortening the delivery time.”

Fierce battle in food delivery speed

A Euromonitor report found that the food delivery market in Vietnam was worth about $33 million in 2018 and is expected to top $38 million by 2020. The GCOMM report also showed that 99 per cent of survey respondents use the service at least two or three times per month, with 39 per cent using it two or three times a week.

Aware of the huge potential from the market and what matters to customers, food delivery brands have tried to better the customer experience by focusing on speed. Now.vn committed to deliver food in 25 minutes, and Lala said they take 30 minutes. As a “rookie” in the market, GoFood also put the criteria of speed in its slogan “Any dish is available, and delivered fast”.

It’s a tough business, however. Major names like FoodPanda have withdrawn from the market. Among the most popular apps (Lixi, GrabFood, Foody/Now.vn, GoFood, Lala and Vietnammm), Lixi and Lala have reported slow business.

The food delivery market is expected to continue to generate fierce “money burning” competition among different providers, as happened with the ride-hailing market earlier. However, unlike the ride-hailing battle, introducing attractive promotional programs will not decide who is the winner in the food delivery market, as speed and quality are the most important factors.

In the broader context, experts believe that the beneficiaries will eventually be Vietnamese consumers when, in the future, they will have a wide variety of super apps serving all their needs with just one tap.

Source: Vneconomictimes

Apple CEO Tim Cook has recently announced a plan to build a database center in Viet Nam in an effort to reduce reliance on third partners like Amazon and Microsoft.

PM calls for establishment of public-private forum on climate change in Davos

The announcement was made on January 23 while the CEO met with Vietnamese PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc who is present in Davos, Switzerland for the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2019.

PM Phuc congratulated the group on its successful investment and business operation in Viet Nam. He also voiced his backing for the plan on database center establishment.

Three years ago, domestic and international press reported about a US$ 1 billion database center of Apple in Viet Nam. Accordingly, Apple had two options of Ha Noi or Da Nang.

The establishment of the database center is part of the group’s bid to reduce its reliance on third partners namely Amazon and Microsoft.

This will be the second project of Apple in Viet Nam. Earlier, in October 2015, Apple invested US$ 673,000 to set a company named Apple Vietnam LLC in HCMC.

Apple was said to be relatively slower than its peers including Samsung and LG (from the RoK) and Microsoft (the U.S.).

Samsung invested over US$ 11.2 billion in Thai Nguyen and Bac Ninh provinces in Viet Nam. The group is building a research and development center in Viet Nam.

Meanwhile, LG LG Electronics poured US$ 1.5 billion in Hai Phong. Microsoft moved its mobile production from China, Hungary, and Mexico to Bac Ninh province in 2014.

Experts assessed that Viet Nam has emerged as a key market of Apply in the context that large markets including China, the U.S., and India showed signs of saturation and weak purchasing power.

In spite of higher costs in comparison with average incomes and spending budgets of customers, Apple phone sales in Viet Nam are impressive.

Counterpoint Research reported that between Q2, 2017 and Q2, 2018, Apply owned over 5% of Viet Nam’s smart phone market.

Apple Tim Cook also forecast that the group will earn its record revenue in Viet Nam. Accordingly, the group expects to earn high revenues in key markets including the U.S, Cana, Mexico, Europe (Germany and Italy), Asia Pacific region (the RoK and Viet Nam).

According to a report on VGP