HKPhone, a Vietnamese Android-based smartphone sold in 2014 and the first half of 2015, but quietly left the market in the third quarter of 2015.
Q-Mobile, a well-known brand that appeared in the market in 2013 with low-cost models, also ‘gave up the game’ in late 2015. BKAV’s BPhone, which debuted in mid-2015 with advertisement campaigns, did not have satisfactory sales. Meanwhile, the products of large technology firms such as Viettel, FPT and VNPT are displayed only at the firms’ showrooms and call centers.
According to GfK Vietnam, a market analysis firm, only two Vietnamese brands stand firmly in the market – Mobiistar and Masscom. Mobiistar’s sales ranked fourth in the market, with which the manufacturer holds 9 percent of market share, while Masscom ranks fifth with 5 percent of market share.
Meanwhile, Mobell, a Vietnamese brand well known for feature phone users, now struggles to survive with low-cost smartphone models. The manufacturer’s smartphone models priced at VND1.5-3 million have been selling well to students and common users in HCM City.
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Tran The Vinh, the owner of a mobile phone shop in district 5, HCM City, said he once distributed Vietnamese smartphones, but the sales went very slowly as the products were unattractive with bad design, weak configuration and uncompetitive prices.
Vietnamese manufacturers did not spend much money on advertisements and there were many problems with post-sale services.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese brands don’t have opportunities to squeeze into the middle-class and high-end market segments, where Samsung and Apple have been dominating for many years.
According to GfK, from 2014 to May 2016, the smartphone models priced at below VND6 million accounted for 4/5 of the market share.
Since early 2016, after dominating the low-cost market segment, Chinese brands, including Lenovo, CoolPad, Meizu and Vivo, began conquering the middle-class market segment with products priced at over VND5 million.
Meanwhile, Asus, Huawei, Oppo and the Vietnamese Mobiistar have joined the market segment with products priced at VND5-10 million.
The models launched by manufacturers have selling prices 40 percent lower than brands from Europe and the US with the same configuration.
Ngo Nguyen Kha, managing director of Mobiistar, said latent risks always exist in the mobile phone market, where weak brands can be easily overtaken by rivals with powerful financial capability and experience.
To compete with big manufacturers and Chinese brands which began attacking the Vietnamese market in 2012, Mobiistar has to offer a wide range of products at different price levels to attract users.
