Cellphone S announced it will open its 100th store in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho but CEO Nguyen Anh Van said the chain actually has 111 shops in 26 cities/provinces. Cellphone S wants to set up several shops in big cities and provinces and does not intend to explore rural markets.

Van said Cellphone S’ clients are mainly high-end and tech-savvy, and live in large cities. The expansion will allow the retail chain to access more mid-end clients.

Selling Apple and Samsung’s products for many years, Cellphone S now wants to sell Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi products as well. However, the chain will only target large cities or provinces where people’s income and demand are higher than the average level.

The shops in other cities and provinces will cover large premises where more technological products, not only smartphones but TVs and laptops as well, will be sold.

“We believe the market is large enough for Cellphone S to expand its network. Only when opening more than 200 shops will business efficiency need to be carefully considered,” Van said.

The Gioi Di Dong (Mobile World) and FPT Shop have said their shops fully cover cities and provinces and they do not intend to open more shops. The two chains have over 4,500 stores nationwide. 

However, FPT Shop opened five S. Studio by FPT, high-end shops in cooperation with Samsung Premium Store in Hanoi, Hai Phong and Binh Duong.

Shop Dunk earlier announced it will open 50 stores specializing in Apple products.

Di Dong Viet CEO Dat Nguyen said this brand has 58 stores and plans to have 70 shops by the year end.

Analysts say that Vietnamese retail chains cooperate with big manufacturers to open retail stores in order to have support from manufacturers and to reduce operation costs.

GfK estimates that 14-16 million smartphones are sold in the Vietnamese market each year. Sales have decreased in recent years due to weaker demand. However, the market size is still large with an estimated value of $4 billion.

Trong Dat