Baemin entered Vietnam in mid-2019 after taking over Vietnammm.com. Baemin is operated by Woowa Brothers Vietnam, a joint venture between Woowa Brothers, the leading delivery firm in South Korea, and Delivery Hero, the German food delivery group which operates in 50 countries.

In Vietnam, Baemin focused on food delivery and other services, such as shopping service, online store and cosmetics sales.

Vietnamese were familiar with the brand's characters, such as lovely Meo Map (fat cat) and witty green hat Shipperman, and their humane messages and sympathetic sayings close to Vietnamese culture.

Baemin said it decided to leave because of economic difficulties globally as well as the stiff competition in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese food delivery market developed rapidly in the years before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many companies poured money into the market to obtain more market share with big sale promotions.

Large players in the market such as Grab, ShopeeFood and Gojek have launched more promotions, thus causing difficulties to other players, including Baemin.

Currently, Grab and ShopeeFood have more than 85 percent of market share in food delivery.

With its modest market share, Baemin cannot offer other services such as car booking and goods delivery. Though it was respected by customers, it could not attract more customers because of the lack of sale promotions.

In September, before the official departure was announced, Baemin’s leaders told its workers that it needed to temporarily scale down operations because of challenges in the Vietnamese market.

Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Östberg said the business in Vietnam never brought profits, though the company’s assessment about prospects in Asia was positive.

Vietnam, with a population of nearly 100 million, has the highest retail potential among other regional countries.  However, the competition level in the market is very high, which has caused many retailers to leave.

Tuan Nguyen