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Tag: Vietnam

  • Vietnam considers more pork imports as prices surge

    Vietnam considers more pork imports as prices surge

    The government has asked the agriculture ministry to look into increasing pork imports as supply plunges and prices reach 3-year high.

    The order, signed by Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue, seeks to stabilize pork prices, which have been surging since earlier this month and are now at a 3-year high of VND60,000-70,000 ($2.6-3) per kilogram.

    Experts have also expressed concerns that the recent price surge follows increasing exports to China. In January-August the country exported $449 million worth of meat, up 3.6 percent year-on-year from 2018, mostly because of the rise in pork exports to China.

    Domestic supply has been falling since the African swine fever broke out in February and spread to all localities. Almost 5 million pigs have been culled because of the virus, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development estimated.

    In January-September, pig stock in the country dropped 19 percent year-on-year, while pork supply fell 9 percent, according to the General Statistics Office.

    Vietnam, the world’s fifth-largest pork producer last year, is at risk of a 500,000-ton shortage of pork, or 20 percent of total demand, between July and next February, according to global market research firm Ipsos Business Consulting.

    In the first seven months, Vietnam imported $22.1 million worth of pork, 4.3 times that of the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Major import markets were Brazil, the U.S. and Poland.

    About 70 percent of all meat consumed last year in Vietnam was pork, according to the ministry.

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  • Motorcycle market continues to shrink

    Motorcycle market continues to shrink

    Vietnam’s motorbike sales fell the third straight quarter by 3.8 percent to 831,500 units in Q3.

    Sales for the top five brands, which account for around 95 percent of the market, had fallen 6.13 percent in the first quarter and 4.39 percent in the second, according to the Vietnam Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (VAMM).

    Honda has a nearly 77 percent market share, with Piaggio, Suzuki, SYM, and Yamaha making up the top five.

    UnitsMotorcyles sales by quarter VAMM membersQ1 2018Q2 2018Q3 2018Q4 2018Q1 2019Q2 2019Q3 20190250k500k750k1 000kSource: VAMM

    In the first nine months together they sold around 2.33 million units, down 5 percent, VAMM data shows.

    Although motorcycles remain the major mode of transport, the increasing frequency of traffic jams and air pollution, especially in big cities, are causing their sales to gradually fall, local experts said.

    VAMM had earlier said that falling motorbike sales were because the market was near saturation. It has decided not to hold its annual motorcycle exhibition this year for this reason.

    With sales of nearly 3.4 million units last year, Vietnam was the world’s fourth-biggest motorcycle market after India, China and Indonesia, according to a recent report by market research firm Motorcycles Data.

    Last year, Vietnam had the highest proportion of people buying new motorbikes, with over 35,000 new motorbikes sold per one million people.

    At the end of 2016, there were 45 million registered motorbikes in Vietnam, a country of over 92 million people, according to the Ministry of Transport.

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  • Vietcombank first local lender to open Australia branch

    Vietcombank first local lender to open Australia branch

    Vietcombank, one of Vietnam’s leading banks, has received approval from the central bank to open a branch in Australia.

    The branch will open in Sydney and have a registered capital of AUD71 million ($48.08 million), according to the State Bank of Vietnam’s (SBV) approval document released Wednesday.

    Vietcombank must complete the opening of the branch within 24 months from the date of the SBV’s approval, after which it expires, the document says.

    This move is an important step in Vietcombank’s global expansion strategy, in which it aims to gain a place among the world’s top 300 banking and financial groups by 2020, it said in a statement.

    In June this year, Vietcombank received the final permit to set up a representative office in New York City of the U.S. from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

    Vietcombank has more than 500 branches, representative offices, and member companies in Vietnam and overseas, including a financial company in Hong Kong, a money transfer company in the U.S., a representative office in Singapore and a subsidiary in Laos.

    The lender is one of three Vietnamese banks among the world’s most valuable brands, according to Brand Finance, a global branded business valuation and strategy consultancy.

    Vietcombank, BIDV and Vietinbank are Vietnam’s three biggest banks in Forbes’s list of 2,000 largest listed firms in the world. In the Forbes ranking released in May, Vietcombank jumped 198 spots to 1,096th with revenues of $3.1 billion and a market value of $10.9 billion.

    Japan’s Mizuho Bank is Vietcombank’s largest foreign shareholder, with a 15 percent stake, while the Vietnamese state holds 74.8 percent.

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  • Grab tests new bus booking service in Vietnam

    Grab tests new bus booking service in Vietnam

    A new service, now available on Grab’s app, allows customers to look at schedules and book tickets from the ride-hailing giant’s partner bus operators.

    Grab has begun testing the bus-booking feature for customers traveling between Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat airport and Vung Tau Town in southern Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province starting Monday, the company said in a release.

    The route is currently operated by local firm Avigo, Grab’s partner bus operator, which runs 24 trips a day. By the end of this year, Grab will test out one more route between District 7 and District 1 in HCMC, operated by local partner City View Bus at a frequency of 44 trips per day.

    Grab’s Bus feature will help customers find buses and routes that best suit their schedule, book tickets in advance, track the bus in real-time and know when it is arriving. Customers will be able to make cashless payments through the Moca e-wallet function on the Grab app, with an international debit card, or by QR code, Grab said.

    The Bus feature will allow Grab’s transportation partners to access Grab’s vast user base, boost operational efficiency and business growth through the use of the company’s technological platform, the company said.

    Grab began testing the Bus feature in the Philippines two weeks ago, allowing customers to book tickets for two routes from Makati City, the country’s financial hub, to a nearby city.

    Grab, with its app on more than 160 million mobile devices across eight countries, entered Vietnam in 2014 and now offers a wide range of services from taxi and motorbike hailing to food delivery, online payment, express delivery, and hotel booking.

    In late August, the Singapore-based tech firm announced in a statement it will invest some $500 million in Vietnam in the next five years to expand its transport, food and payment networks.

    The money would also be used to develop fintech, mobility solutions and logistics to spur the country’s digital economy, Grab said.

    Vietnam’s ride-hailing and food delivery market is expected to top $1 billion this year and $4 billion in 2025, according to a recent report by Google, Singaporean investment firm Temasek and U.S. consultancy Bain.

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  • Vietnam fintech sector in the fast lane

    Vietnam fintech sector in the fast lane

    The number of financial technology companies in Vietnam has grown from around 40 in 2016 to 154, focusing on payment, peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding, a survey has found.

    Out of the 154 fintech startups, 37 operate in payments, 25 in P2P lending and 22 in blockchain and crypto and remittance, according to a survey by the Banking Technology Development Research Institute (BTI), National University of Ho Chi Minh City, released at a fintech conference in HCMC on Monday.

    The rapid growth of fintech has transformed the financial and banking sector by offering consumers more convenient products and services.

    Fintech companies in Vietnam are likely to continue encroaching on the retail market share of traditional banks, with peer-to-peer lending, e-wallets, payment and cashless payments becoming an integral part of everyday life, the report noted.

    However, areas such as asset management, liquidity management, investment management, insurance, and automated advisory services are still in their infancy, it added.

    Hoang Cong Gia Khanh, director of BTI, said: “Because 70 percent of Vietnam’s fintech companies are still startups, it will be difficult to have large-scale fintech firms even with foreign capital.”

    Some 70 percent of them have foreign backers both from developed countries such as Singapore, Japan, the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., Denmark, and France and neighboring countries such as China and Malaysia, he added.

    Vietnamese fintech companies also face challenges like cybersecurity, human resource training and others.

    Startups in fintech received more investment — $117 million — than in any other industry in Vietnam last year, according to startup accelerator program Topica Founder Institute.

    The country’s fintech market was valued at $4.4 billion in 2017 and is predicted

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  • Grab launches first shared kitchen in Vietnam

    Grab launches first shared kitchen in Vietnam

    Grab launched a shared kitchen in Vietnam on Tuesday to cater to the growing demand for food delivery.

    It is in Thu Duc District, Saigon, and 12 restaurants make food exclusively for GrabFood drivers to pick up and deliver to customers.

    Grab has given each of them space to cook for free though they have to pay utility bills, and get a commission on the orders.

    Vietnam is the second place where it has launched GrabKitchen after Indonesia, and there is great potential for this model in the country, Jerry Lim, CEO of Grab Vietnam, said in a statement.

    Thu Duc was chosen because of its young demographic comprising students and workers who want to order from their favorite restaurants which are located too far away, he said.

    More such kitchens would be opened in the city this year and the model would be expanded to Hanoi and Da Nang next year, Lim added.

    Shared kitchens have become popular in Asian countries such as China, Japan and India in recent years as restaurants can focus completely on the food and do not need to find, rent and manage a shop.

    Between January and June this year the number of GrabFood transactions quadrupled to an average of 300,000 orders a day.

    Competitors for GrabFood in Vietnam now are Foody’s Now, Go-Viet’s GoFood and South Korean-owned Baemin.

    Vietnam’s ride-hailing and food delivery market is expected to top $1 billion this year and $4 billion in 2025, according to a recent report by Google, Singaporean investment firm Temasek and U.S. consultancy Bain.

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  • Vietnam tops world in growth of entertainment apps

    Vietnam tops world in growth of entertainment apps

    Vietnam was the world’s fastest-growing market for entertainment-based mobile apps last year, fueled by demand for video streaming services.

    Its growth score was 44.96, significantly higher than the global average of 24.27, according to a report by German mobile measurement firm Adjust. The report assessed data from nearly 3,500 apps released in 2018 and 31 countries based on four industry verticals, e-commerce, entertainment, gaming, and utilities.

    Adjust’s Mobile Growth Map uses the growth score, a new metric it developed, to chart the rise of apps in global markets. It is calculated by dividing the total app installs per month by the number of monthly active users for each vertical and country to reveal the rate of growth.

    The growth of entertainment apps in Vietnam was fueled by the demand for video streaming services, the report said. The country was seeing a trend of people switching from traditional TV to over-the-top media services which allowed them to watch movies and other shows online. Video streaming services, karaoke and music apps engaged users for long stretches of time, and presented an opportunity for diverse, relevant advertising, the report said. Russia was second behind Vietnam with a growth score of 44.21, followed by Thailand (36.61) and Colombia (34.87).

    Vietnam had also experienced robust growth in gaming apps with a growth score of 51.40 against the global average of 42.85 to place sixth in a list topped by Colombia.

    “The Asia Pacific is a perfect place to soft-launch a new app without the heavy lifting of full localization. Indonesia, Singapore and India, as well as Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand represent great opportunities.”

    Vietnamese spend an average of four hours a day on their smartphones, 65 percent of that time on apps, according to a survey done last July by HCMC market research firm Q&Me. Around 64 million people, or over half of the country’s population, are online.

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  • Vietnam Airlines to launch inflight Wi-Fi service

    Vietnam Airlines to launch inflight Wi-Fi service

    Vietnam Airlines will launch inflight Wi-Fi service on some flights connecting Hanoi and HCMC with cities in China, Japan and Singapore.

    Passengers will be charged VND75,000-735,000 ($2.95 -$29.95) depending on usage time and capacity.

    Providing inflight Wi-Fi service is one of the steps that Vietnam Airlines is taking towards becoming a digital airlines by 2020 and an international five-star airline in the future.

    The Wi-Fi service will be available on the domestic route from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City and international flights from Hanoi to China’s Shanghai and Japan’s Osaka and between HCMC and Osaka and Singapore, the airline said in a statement Monday.

    In the coming months, the airline will continue upgrading and expanding this service to Boeing 787 and other Airbus A350 aircraft with faster speeds, it said.

    Le Hong Ha, deputy general director of Vietnam Airlines, said that when using the service, passengers can send text messages on popular applications such as Viber, iMessage, Messenger and Whatsapp.

    “This is part of Vietnam Airlines’ efforts to catch up with the development trends of the world aviation industry, with many 5-star airlines like Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways and Lufthansa providing similar services,” Ha said.

    Vietnam Airlines operates flights on 60 international and 33 domestic routes.

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  • Saigon to double car registration fees

    Saigon to double car registration fees

    HCMC will raise registration fees of cars under 9 passenger seasts from VND11 million ($473) to VND20 million ($860) from October 17.

    According to a resolution recently passed by the city’s People Council, licensing fees for other types of cars will be set from the initial cost of VND150,000 ($6.4) to VND500,000 ($22). Such as, prices for semi trailers and trailers (container trucks) will now be VND200,000 ($8.6).

    For motorbikes, those valued under VND15 million ($645) will now have a new registration fee of VND1 million ($43). Motorbikes costing between VND15-40 million ($645-1,720) and above will have new registration fees of VND2-4 million ($86-172).

    Vo Van Hoan, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, said the new registration fees were equivalent to those in Hanoi, and that the increase was an appropriate reflection of the city’s economic status.

    The HCMC department of transportation estimates that there are more than 825,000 cars and 8.1 million motorbikes in the city. In the first six months of this year, the number of newly registered cars and motorbikes increased year-on-year by 15 percent and 6 percent respectively.

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  • Vietnam’s Mobile World launches fashion-watch retail model

    Vietnam’s Mobile World launches fashion-watch retail model

    Vietnamese smartphone retailer, The Gioi Di Dong (Mobile World), has discovered a thriving new business model: a fashion-watch retail concept.

    The company offers a wide selection of watches from well-known fashion brands, including Michael Kors, Fossil and Casio. Watches are displayed along with other tech products in Mobile World’s outlets in a store-within-a-store concept.

    Since launching the fashion-watch retail model earlier this year, Mobile World claims to have built its share to 15 percent of the country’s fashion-watch sales. Last month, it sold more than 50,000 timepieces across 100 outlets.

    Doan Van Hieu Em, CEO of Mobile World Group, told Vietnam News he is planning to take his company’s share of the fashion-watch market to 50 percent next year, by opening stores in 500 of its 2000-strong network across the country.  His target is to sell 3 million units.

    “Mobile World’s sales capacity has even surpassed the suppliers’ expectations,” he said.

    “We are trying to find watch manufacturers around the world, supplying exclusive goods in large quantities to meet the rapidly expanding demand in the near future.”

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  • Vietnamese operators to begin 5G testing as of 2019

    Vietnamese operators to begin 5G testing as of 2019

    Starting from the capital, Hanoi, the country aims to upgrade its mobile network along with the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City.

    “Vietnam should be among the first nations to launch 5G services in order to move up in global telecom rankings,” said Nguyen Manh Hung, the country’s minister of Information and Communications.

    Hung, previously the chairman and general director of Viettel Group, wants to reacquire Vietnam’s rank among the top countries worldwide in terms of major exporter of 5G gear through boosting the development of local equipment. He also plans to make the licensing and approval process easier for Vietnam’s IT sector.

    Several partnerships have been made in order to facilitate the procedures: VNPT has teamed up with Nokia on 5G, while MobiFone signed an agreement with Samsung Electronics to cooperate on 4G and 5G networks earlier this year.

    In 2017, Ericsson held the first 5G demonstration in the country in partnership with the Vietnam Authority of Radio Frequency Management.

    While MobiFone and VNPT are on the list of state-owned companies slated for privatization by 2020, Viettel is to remain in government hands.

  • Vietnam coffee chains ready for a marketshare battle

    Vietnam coffee chains ready for a marketshare battle

    Major Vietnam coffee chains are targeting new customers by adopting take-away business models on city streets.

    In Ho Chi Minh City, the largest of the local Vietnam coffee chains, Highlands Coffee, which is majority-owned by Jollibee Foods, has been selling its product in coffee booths set up at roadsides from 7am – 9am when traffic is at its busiest.

    According to Highland’s staff, the company will be building more sidewalk trolleys to serve the increasing needs of customers on the road, most of whom drive motorcycles. Instead of going into the coffee shops, customers now can just stop on the roadside and grab a coffee to go.

    Other major coffee brands, including Passio and Vinacafe, set up morning coffee booths on some busy streets a few months ago. As the new model is easy to run and needs low-cost investment, the Vietnam coffee chains have been able to lower their prices to attract more customers.

    Targeting low- and middle-income customers, Vietnamese coffee company Trung Nguyen has recently launched a small-scale coffee franchise called E-Coffee. According to Vo Thi Ha, communications director of Trung Nguyen Group, the takeaway coffee model only costs around one-eighth of a normal store’s investment.

    “As the mid and high-end segments become increasingly saturated, the affordable and low-income groups are increasingly seen as potential revenue generators. This consumer segment is large and easy to serve, so could generate big profits because of low investment costs, as long as businesses find the right model,” a marketing expert in Ho Chi Minh City told local newspaper VN Express.

    However, Coffee Bike director, Do Quoc Anh, described the current street-trolley coffee business model as unprofessional and unsustainable. He said if it was not developed properly and carefully, it would die out as a trend.

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  • Vincom Retail unveils three shopping centre plans

    Vincom Retail unveils three shopping centre plans

    Vietnam’s Vincom Retail has announced three new Vincom Mega Mall shopping centres.

    Two of the new properties will be located in Hanoi and the third in Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s commercial capital.

    Located in one of the largest real estate projects in Hanoi, Vincom Mega Mall Ocean Park will occupy 56,000sqm, and serve up to 1.5 million customers annually. Vincom says the mall’s design was influenced by “subterranean movements” and the blue waterfront.

    Also in Hanoi, Vincom Mega Mall Smart City will feature a design concept inspired by future technology trends. The new shopping centre will cover 68,000sqm and has a catchment of 1.8 million potential customers, primarily millennials.

    The third shopping centre, Vincom Mega Mall Grand Park, will open in District 9 of Ho Chi Minh City. The mall will occupy 48,000sqm of commercial space, over five floors and one basement level.

    Vincom Retail’s deputy director of sales and marketing, Tran Thu Hien, said there are four key elements the company believes will secure Vincom Mega Mall’s success: the product structure, customer base, tenancy partnerships and inspirational marketing.

    According to real estate company CBRE, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City will potentially become on the top three retail markets in Asia-Pacific.

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  • Vietjet Celebrates Autumn with Hundreds of Thousands of Promotional Tickets

    Vietjet Celebrates Autumn with Hundreds of Thousands of Promotional Tickets

    Vietjet has announced its latest deal with hundreds of thousands of promotional tickets going from S$0 to travel around Asia in the Autumn season.

    Promotional tickets are available for purchase on Vietjet’s official website or on the “Vietjet Air” mobile app from now until 10 October 2019, between the golden hours of 1.00 pm – 3.00 pm (GMT+8). The promotion includes daily return tickets from Singapore to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and all international routes between Vietnam and Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and Cambodia. All routes operated by Thai Vietjet are also applicable for this promotion.

    Vietjet Vice President Nguyen Thanh Son said, “With an expanding flight network across Asia that includes convenient departure timings with more than 400 flights daily and super-saving tickets priced from just VND0, VND99,000, VND199,000, etc., customers can easily fly anytime and anywhere. Vietjet aims to bring millions of flying opportunities to everyone, meeting air travel demands of passengers, pioneering new direct routes such as Da Nang – Taipei/ Tokyo (Haneda), Ho Chi Minh City – Bali; Ho Chi Minh City/ Hanoi – New Delhi, which helps save transit time for passengers and give them more time to experience the destinations. Besides Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, travelers from other localities like Hai Phong, Nha Trang, Phu Quoc, etc. can now easily take direct flights to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.”

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  • Bamboo Airways hopes to triple market share to 30 pct

    Bamboo Airways hopes to triple market share to 30 pct

    New kid on the block Bamboo Airways wants to expand its current 10 percent market share to 30 percent by next year. For this, it first plans to expand its fleet and increase the number of domestic routes before starting international services to destinations like South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan.

    Its chairman Trinh Van Quyet last month said it would be the first Vietnamese airline to fly directly to the U.S.

    The carrier is preparing for an evaluation by the International Air Transport Association for issuing a safety certificate, which would allow it to partner with international airlines, the statement said.

    It is preparing to file for permission to operate direct flights to the U.S. using wide-bodied Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

    The firm plans to raise $100 million next year in an initial public offering, Reuters reported recently.

    Its entry has eaten into the market share of other airlines. The passenger market share of national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines and its two affiliates, Jetstar Pacific and VASCO, as of June was down 5 percentage points from last year to 51 percent.

    Budget carrier Vietjet suffered a 2.7 percentage point drop from 44 percent to 41.3 percent.

    Bamboo Airways, which began flying in January, last month received permission from the government to expand its fleet from 10 to 30.

    Vietnam expects the aviation market to grow by 16 percent a year in 2015-20 and 8 percent in 2020-30.

    This means there will be a possible 117 million air travelers by 2023, 85 percent by Vietnamese carriers, which will require 340 aircraft, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam.

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