Vietnam’s e-commerce market is predicted to surpass that of Malaysia and Thailand by 2025 (according to a report by Google, Temasek and Bain&Company).
Acclime Vietnam and Kantar Worldpanel has conducted the report “The e-Commerce Pivot in Vietnam 2022”, and made the assessment that Vietnam is the “rising dragon” of the e-commerce industry in Southeast Asia.
In 2021, 73.2% of the population in Vietnam used the Internet while the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand also had a similar proportion. Although ranked 6th in terms of Internet users, Vietnam has the highest percentage of population shopping on e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia, with 49.3 million people.
The total value of goods in Vietnam’s e-commerce market was estimated at $13 billion in 2021, up $5 billion compared to 2020. Therefore, it is not surprising that this figure will reach $39 billion by 2025.
Regarding online shopping spending of Vietnamese people, the average spending in 2020 was $240 per person, about $25 higher than in 2019. By 2022, the amount spent on online shopping is forecast to increase to about $270 per person. This increase is due to the recovery of the economy and the development of e-commerce.
In the list of top 10 e-commerce platforms with the highest average monthly traffic in Southeast Asia in 2020, there are 5 Vietnamese names including Mobile World, Tiki, FPT Shop, Sendo and Bach Hoa Xanh.
These 5 names also recorded a very high average monthly traffic of about 81.6 million. This contributes to making Vietnam become one of the 2 countries with the highest monthly e-commerce traffic in the region, just behind Indonesia.
According to Kantar Worldpanel, in 2021, Vietnam saw an increase of 65% in online shopping in comparison with the previous year, with e-commerce accounting for 6% of the total FMCG market (compared to Thailand’s 4%).
Vietnam’s e-commerce market is also very competitive, with hundreds of domestic and foreign “players” constantly creating value and many strategies to gain market share.
Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are two central e-commerce markets in Vietnam. This is thanks to the strategic location, quality infrastructure, plus the ability to invest on a large scale of more and more logistics service providers.
Particularly, there are 567 active e-commerce platforms in Ho Chi Minh City. Moreover, the development gap of the e-commerce industry between two big cities (Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City) and other provinces is narrowing. Many online services related to e-commerce are deployed more in the local area, reaching a large number of untapped customers from small provinces of Vietnam.
In addition, there are still 29.3% of the population of Vietnam who have not yet participated in the digital economy. When comparing this figure with neighboring countries such as Thailand (only 10.1%), it can be seen that there is a huge development potential of Vietnam’s e-commerce industry in the coming years.
Vietnam’s e-commerce market is even predicted to surpass that of Malaysia and Thailand by 2025 (according to reports by Google, Temasek and Bain&Company).
According to Statista in 2021, the number of Internet users in Vietnam was estimated at 72.53 million, accounting for 77.4% of the population. This figure is higher than that of Indonesia (76.8%) – a country that has witnessed a rapid development of e-commerce in recent years.
Regarding Vietnam’s middle-class population, World Data Lab research shows that the number is growing rapidly and is expected to reach 21 million people by 2030.
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are two places where most of the middle class people live. This group can spend as little as $11 USD a day on shopping (according to McKinsey). The middle class is growing fast and spending more, which contributes to creating a change in consumer behavior in the retail and e-commerce ecosystem.
Source: Henry Tran – VietnamCredit
