VietNamNet Bridge - Ten of the 50 Mercedes-Maybach S600 cars to be made in 2015 have been ordered by Vietnamese. Most of the world’s famous fashion brands are present in Vietnam. The country is the seventh-biggest gold consumer in the world.

 

Daimler has brought the Mercedes-Maybach brand back to the market for a little while and has launched S600 model priced at VND9.6 billion ($451,850). 

Tuoi Tre quoted its sources as reporting that of the 50 S600s the manufacturer plans to churn out this year, 10 have been ordered by Vietnamese, which means that 1/5 of the world’s 2015 version Mercedes Maybach S600s will be rolling out on Vietnam’s streets.

Despite the Vietnamese income per capita and the current economic crisis, luxury car manufacturers such as Lamborghini, Jaguar, Bentley and Rolls-Royce all have reported their satisfactory sales in Vietnam.

Mercedes Benz, which joined the Vietnamese market 20 years ago, sold 1,106 cars just within the first half of 2014, an increase of 70 percent over the same period in 2013.

The Knight Frank Wealth Report 2015 released recently showed that the number of ultra-high net worth Vietnamese individuals is expected to increase by twofold to 300 by 2024.

Euromonitor International showed that 100,000 Vietnamese were reported as having an annual income of over $75,000 in 2013. Vietnamese super-rich not only have been trying to seek new investment opportunities to earn more money, but also have been trying to spend more money.

Also according to Euromonitor International, the Vietnamese apparel market is expected to have the value of $4.2 billion by 2017. 

The high profitability of the market explains why nearly all the most famous fashion brands - Louis Vuitton, Dior, Burberry, Ermenegildo Zegna, Bulgari and Hermes – have been present here.

Hermes’ shop in Hanoi which opened in 2008, reported steady annual growth rate of 20-30 percent. Two years ago, Salvatore Ferragamo opened its fifth shop in Vietnam.

Vietnamese super rich people like spending money on liquor. Tuoi Tre reported that French products are the most favored in Vietnam, which accounted for 35 percent of the market share in 2012, followed by Chile with 20 percent, then Australia, the US and Italy.

Vietnam tops South East Asia in consuming alcohol, spending $3 billion a year on the products.

Vietnam ranks the seventh in the world among the biggest gold consumers. In 2014, Vietnamese spent $519 million on jewelry, or 8 percent less than 2013. However, the amount was still higher than countries with higher GDP growth rates, including Thailand ($250 million) and South Korea ($382 million).

Bui Ngoc Son, an economist, while noting that this is good news that the number of Vietnamese is on the rise, has said that this could be a warning about increasingly serious embezzlement.

Dat Viet