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