China imported phones and phone parts worth US$7.15 billion from Vietnam last year, up nearly eight-fold against 2016, according to a newly-released report by the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

Young Vietnamese customers inspect phones on display at a retail store in HCMC. China imported phones and phone parts worth US$7.15 billion from Vietnam last year, up nearly eight-fold against 2016 

Customs data shows China became the second largest importer of phones and phone parts from Vietnam last year, just behind the European Union with US$11.96 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6.4%.

Exports of the products to South Korea also rose by a staggering 45.4% year-on-year to US$3.97 billion and shipments to the United Arab Emirates edged up a slight 1.6% to US$3.89 billion.

The report indicates Vietnam spent US$8.75 billion importing phones and phone parts from China and US$6.18 billion from South Korea last year, up 42.4% and 72.6% from a year earlier.

Therefore, for these products alone, Vietnam ran respective trade deficits of around US$600 million and US$2.21 billion with China and South Korea.

Notably, according to the report, China has accounted for around half of phone and phone part exports to Vietnam in recent years.

Apart from hi-end gadgets of tech giants like Samsung, Apple and HTC, industry watchers said Chinese brands such as Oppo, Huawei, Xiaomi and Vivo have dominated the mid-end and feature-phone market segments.

Although some major Korean phone producers like Samsung and LG have set up shop in Vietnam, many parts suppliers of these tech firms have yet to come to the country. Therefore, analysts forecast Vietnam will have to continue importing phone parts from the Northeast Asian nation this year.

Customs data shows Vietnam exported phones and phone parts worth US$45.27 billion last year, a year-on-year increase of 31.9%, while the country saw a 54.8% rise in imports of these products at US$16.34 billion. The products made up over 21% of the country’s export revenue last year.

SGT