Vietnam could have Southeast Asian's third-largest e-commerce market by 2025 (Photo: VNA)

The data was announced at the Vietnam Online Marketing Forum (VOMF) 2020 held by VECOM in Ho Chi Minh City on October 21.

Total retail sales of goods and services online hit around 11.5 billion USD in 2019.

The e-Commerce sector is forecast to maintain a growth of more than 30 percent this year to exceed 15 billion USD.

The market size is expected to hit 43 billion USD by 2025, ranking third in Southeast Asia, according to earlier forecasts of Google, Temasek and Bain&Company.

A recent report released by the Ministry of Industry and Trade suggests that the e-Commerce revenue may climb 20 percent in the last quarter of the year to reach 12 billion USD by the year’s end if the COVID-19 is still kept under control.

In the early stages of the pandemic (from February to April), 57 percent of surveyed e-commerce-related businesses reported their revenue growth was below 30 percent compared to the same period of 2019, with some even seeing negative growth, the report said.

However, 24 percent of businesses saw revenue increasing more than 51 percent.

E-commerce revenue in the first six months declined 6 percent year-on-year despite the number of transactions increasing by 25 percent. Most transactions at that time were of low value.

In case the pandemic worsens and adversely impacts production and consumption, supply and operation of transport and catering services, growth could reach only 13 percent with estimated market value of 11 billion USD.

In May, the Government approved the national e-commerce development master plan for 2021-2025, targeting an annual industry growth of 25 percent with more than half of the population shopping online and average spending of about 600 USD per person per year by 2025.

Business-to-consumer (B2C) sales will rise 25 percent per year, accounting for 10 percent of total retail sales of goods and services. Cashless payments in e-commerce would make up 50 percent and about 70 percent of transactions on e-commerce platforms have electronic invoices./.VNA