VietNamNet Bridge – Though the mobile phone sales reportedly dropped
dramatically, more and more manufacturers and distributors still jump into the
market.
A report of GfK Vietnam showed that the sales of mobile phone products in
Vietnam in 2012 was VND30.224 trillion, a decrease of 5.9 percent over 2011. The
sales in the first quarter of 2013, according to big retail systems, decreased
further by 15 percent compared with the first quarter of 2012.
The sales decrease has been explained not only by the lower demand caused by the
economic difficulties, but also by the fact that manufacturers had to slash the
retail prices to attract more buyers.
A mobile phone model would see the price decrease by 10-20 percent just 3 months
after the day it is launched into the market. As the competition gets stiffer,
the next generation mobile phones, which have stronger configuration, tend to be
cheaper, at least by 10 percent.
While the sale of many other products has been slowing down, mobile phone
manufacturers and distributors still hope that the smart phones to be sold would
account for 50 percent of the sales in 2013 instead of 30 percent. If so, the
revenue from smart phone sale would increase to 60-70 percent.
Nguyen Van Dao, Deputy General Director of Samsung Vietnam, has said that though
the sales have decreased, mobile phones remain the strategic products which
bring fat profits to electronics manufacturers, including Samsung.
Nguyen Viet Hoang from LG Vietnam also said that the revenue and profit from
smart phone sale remain attractive enough, not only for LG Vietnam, but for
other manufacturers as well.
According to the two biggest mobile phone retailers in HCM City, Samsung led the
market in terms of revenue in the first quarter of 2013, holding 37 percent of
the market share.
Meanwhile, Nokia still led in terms of the number of phones sold, with 35
percent of market share, thanks to the low cost product sale. The second
position belonged to Samsung with 33 percent. The other brands got the
“remaining pieces of the cake,” but each of them had no more than 10 percent of
market share.
It’s obvious that Samsung is leading in the market in terms of smart phone
sales. Meanwhile, according to Nguyen Duc Tai, General Director of The Gioi Di
Dong, one of the biggest mobile phone distributors in Vietnam, the second
position may belong to Sony in 2013. The manufacturer possesses many source
technologies, while it has been running many marketing campaigns to boost sales.
Also according to Tai, Nokia is a “big guy” in the market segment of popular
products and the smart phones running on Windows, but it lags behind other smart
phone manufacturers, because Windows has not been largely applied as Android.
LG, in 2012, had the revenue accounting for 7 percent in Vietnam, outstripping
that of Sony (3 percent) and HTC (2 percent). Hoang said the manufacturer has
gradually reduced the output of popular products, while it plans to make more
low cost smart phones, priced at around VND1.5 million to attract more
customers. Smart phone sale brings 90 percent of the total revenue of LG.
HTC, though having launched a series of new products like HTC One and Butterfly,
according to retailers, cannot call its golden age back, because the new
products do not show differences in the design.
Though the market has become narrower with many products for different groups of
clients, more manufacturers still attempt to join the market.
Sharp, a big Japanese brand, made its official presence in Vietnam in April. It
has marketed the smart phones priced at VND4.9-11.9 million.
Oppo, a Chinese brand has also been present in Vietnam since March 2013.
However, a Chinese brand is believed not to be favored by Vietnamese.
SGTT