VietNamNet Bridge – Analysts believe that Starbucks coffee in Vietnam would be closer to the Starbucks coffee in India rather than to China.
Starbucks sets one foot in Vietnamese market
Starbucks to open first store in Vietnam
Vietnamese “coffee King” sneers at Starbucks
Fast food market readies for new great war
Why doesn’t Starbucks choose a Vietnamese partner?
|
The hottest topic in the discussion of all Vietnamese people in urban areas
these days, from office workers to businessmen, is the opening of the first
Starbucks coffee shop in Vietnam the next month. They all are curious about how
expensive Starbucks coffee will be in Vietnam.
Experts say that when entering Vietnam, Starbucks would have to compete not only
with Vietnamese pavement café which provide cheap coffee that fits Vietnamese
taste, but also other global brands such as Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf from the US
or Gloria Jean’s Coffees from Australia.
Especially, Starbucks will have to persuade Vietnamese consumers, who have got
used to the pure coffee with strong flavor, to shift to drink the coffee with
simple flavors with a lot of fat.
Bloomberg newswire met Tran Cao Tho, a 32-year old architect, and found out that
Tho, like the other young people aged below 35, like the coffee with strong
flavors, while Starbucks cannot fill that niche. Meanwhile, the US brand plans
to lure the clients like Tho – the most potential clients, who like coffee and
can pay for coffee every day.
Tho said to Bloomberg at Café Hanh in Hanoi that he likes black coffee with
strong flavor. He said he would go to Starbucks café sometimes, but just to
enjoy the convenience and atmosphere there, not to enjoy coffee. Tho doesn’t
like Starbucks coffee because its flavor is not strong enough.
However, John Culver, President in charge of the Chinese and Asia Pacific
Markets of Starbucks, has stated that the US brand would march towards the
Vietnamese market, bringing the coffee with the flavor to be adjusted to fit the
taste of Vietnamese people.
This means that Starbucks has shown its strong determination to conquer the
heart of Vietnamese people instead of just bringing the US modern style and
convenience to the cafes in the country. However, the US senior executive
refused to say more clearly how many Starbucks shops to be opened in Vietnam.
Vietnam, a vast market with the coffee consumption increasing by 65 percent in
2008-2011, deserves Starbucks’ methodical investment. The nation has the
population of 90 million people, and three out of every five people are aged
below 35.
A report of the General Statistics Office, in 2012, Vietnam exported 1.73
million tons of coffee, and it remains the biggest robusta coffee exporter in
the world.
John Culver from Starbucks said that Starbucks in Vietnam will be positioned as
a high end product. Meanwhile, Sara Senatore of Sanford C. Bernstein has
predicted that Starbucks coffee price in Vietnam would be lower than in the US,
because of the Vietnamese lower income and lower operation costs in the
Vietnamese market.
The analyst believes that the Starbucks coffee in Vietnam may be closer to that
in India than in China. In India, a cup of cappuccino of Starbucks is priced at
Rupee95, or $1.74, while it is $4 in China.
Meanwhile, a cup of coffee at a pavement café in Vietnam is priced at VND10,000
($0.5), and a cup of Trung Nguyen cappuccino coffee is at VND65,000, or more
than $3.
Dang Le Nguyen Vu, the owner of the well known brand Trung Nguyen Coffee, has
commented that there will be the Vietnamese people who go to Starbucks café just
to prove that they are modern and connoisseurs.
“Meanwhile, those who are keen at coffee will come to us,” he said.
TBKTVN