Vietnam’s smartphone sales top $625mn in 1st quarter: data

Vietnam’s smartphone sales in the three months reached 3.02 million units, up 25 percent from the same period last year, a local retailer has told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, citing data by German market research firm GfK.

The Vietnamese company declined to be named as it is not allowed to reveal the nonpublic information to the media.

The more than three million unit sales were collectively worth VND13.6 trillion (US$624.71 million), meaning the price of a smartphone averaged VND4.5 million ($207), according to data from the same source.

The strongest sales were recorded during the first two months, when Vietnam celebrated Tet, or the Lunar New Year. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s two biggest cities, were the largest markets for smartphones.

Vietnamese consumers have increasingly preferred smartphones to feature phones, with a wide range of brands to choose from, including Samsung, Oppo, Mobiistar, Q-Mobile, Asus, Sony, Apple and Microsoft. Oppo reported the strongest growth thanks to numerous promotional campaigns.

More smartphone users in Vietnam have switched to devices with screens bigger than four inches than the same period last year.

Handsets whose price averaged VND4.5 million were the bestsellers in the Jan-Mar period. Microsoft, Samsung, and Oppo have many products in this price segment.

Global smartphone sales in the first quarter of this year reached 310 million units, up seven percent from Q4-2014, GfK said in a press release on May 15. The total value was $96.2 billion, an eight percent increase from a quarter earlier.

Spending by consumers in Vietnam on technical consumer goods in the first quarter surged 22.8 percent from the same period last year, a GfK report has found.

Vietnamese consumers also spent more than VND36 trillion, or $1.65 billion, on technical consumer goods in the first quarter, with telecommunications accounting for the most sales.

Vietnam’s telecommunications sector generated sales of VND15.7 trillion ($721.18 million), mostly driven by the healthy demand for mobile handsets, in the three-month period, GfK said in another press release, citing findings from its TEMAX Vietnam Q1 2015 quarterly report.