VietNamNet Bridge - The domestic market is being dominated by foreign brands, but Vietnam-made products are still available, targeting low-income earners.

The domestic market is being dominated by foreign brands

Do Thi Thuy Huong from the Vietnam Electronic Industries Association (VEIA) affirmed that the Vietnamese civilian electronics market is still full of potential in the eyes of foreign investors. 

Vietnam not only has a high number of potential consumers with total population of 90 million, but also has the electronic and refrigeration engineering product consumption level expected to rise from the current 7.3 percent to 11.9 percent.

The development of Vietnam’s electronics industry heavily depends on multinational corporations, especially from South Korea and Japan, which make both finished products and electronic parts. 

Meanwhile, Vietnamese manufacturers, including large enterprises, develop slowly and only hold a very small market share.

However, over the last five years, the improvement in average income per capita has had significant effect on household spending, especially on appliances.  Analysts commented this may revive Vietnamese electronics brands and pave the way for them to develop if they can choose suitable market segments.

Asanzo is a typical example. The Vietnamese brand is one of four TV manufacturers holding the most market share, with annual revenue of trillions of dong.

Just four years after establishment, Asanzo became a well known brand. In 2017, It sold 710,000 TV products after selling 500,000 in 2016 and had revenue of nearly VND5 trillion. In rural areas, the Vietnamese brand covers 70 percent of the market.

Nevertheless, as chair of VEIA Luu Hoang Long commented, Vietnam’s electronics manufacturers encounter a lot of difficulties.

Most Vietnamese electronics enterprises are small and medium sized, and lack capital and resources to develop modern production lines. 

As a result, they only do assembling from imported accessories, while the imports account for 77 percent of total value of products. The locally made content in products is very low.

Vietnamese manufacturers only develop old-fashioned products which bring low profits, and therefore, are uncompetitive compared with foreign invested enterprises.

An analyst said that in the past many Vietnamese enterprises only focused on assembling, and did not invest in R&D, technology and automation. They could not protect their brands, even though the domestic market is large.

Some Vietnamese brands such as Asanzo, Senko and Asia, however, still exist in the market and their products are available at supermarkets as well. However, the products bearing Vietnamese brands are listed as low-cost (less than VND1 million).

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