Returning to the Vietnamese market in a period of fierce competition, will Honor succeed?
- Tram Ho
Difficult market
On July 1, Honor officially opened for sale two cheap smartphone models in Vietnam market, Honor X8a and Honor X7A. In these two versions, the X8A model is in the pre-order stage from July 1 to July 7 and is exclusively available at FPT Shop, while the X7A is currently available for purchase. Other models including X5 and X9A will also go on sale in July.
Honor’s return this time is not too loud, product promotion mostly depends on resellers. It is known that this time returning to the Vietnamese market, Honor’s smartphones will only be distributed at certain retail systems. According to the information we received, 3 major retailers confirmed the distribution of Honor phones, including: FPT Shop, Hoang Ha Mobile and Viettel Store.
Honor X8a is available exclusively at FPT Shop in the first week of July
Sharing with the reporter, a representative of another large retail system said that despite being confident in Honor’s ability and expecting Honor to have a good sales volume in Vietnam, for some reason objective in the market, it has led to this system not being able to distribute Honor’s new smartphone models.
At the present time, the price competition among resellers is becoming fiercer, especially after Mobile World Chairman Nguyen Duc Tai warned about the “prolonged groan” in the competition. price competition. Mobile World has, is and will continue to sign cooperation agreements with many brands to exclusively distribute many other products.
Despite having a large market share, accounting for more than 60%, however, there is no information that Mobile World will officially distribute Honor’s smartphones in the near future. This may partly affect Honor’s plan to reach users.
The other big difficulty that Honor faces comes from the very popular brands in Vietnam: Samsung, OPPO, Xiaomi… These are all companies that already have a large market share, mainly thanks to the low-priced smartphone lines. For example, Samsung has the Galaxy A series that sells very well, OPPO has the A series and Reno series also has a large market share, and for Xiaomi is the Redmi and Redmi Note series. Honor entering any segment will need to clearly calculate its plan and direction, at least in the near future.
Optimistic retail chain
Pham Quoc Bao Duy, Mobile Phones Division Manager at FPT Shop, said that in Honor’s return this time, the company has carefully observed the Vietnamese market and has a step-by-step approach plan. ” We see that the company has also observed very closely and found that the Vietnamese market is facing many difficulties and purchasing power is declining, so Honor is also implementing steps such as: not returning too many models at the same time, not investing spread out all the channels that are appropriate for each phase”.
Honor used to be a smartphone manufacturer with great potential because it inherited many quintessence from the parent company, Huawei. After separating to operate independently and no longer depend on Huawei, Honor is gradually developing and regaining its market share. In China, Honor is the top selling smartphone brand. In some other markets, according to Mr. Pham Quoc Bao Duy, although Honor has only been deployed for more than a year, it has achieved positive results when accounting for a market share of about 7.4% in Malaysia and 5.4% in Hong Kong.
” Vietnam is a potential market that attracts many big phone companies, in which, there are many Chinese brands that have been doing successful business such as OPPO, Xiaomi. Therefore, with the available potential, especially Regarding products, it is expected that Honor’s return this time will achieve many good results , ” affirmed Mr. Pham Quoc Bao Duy.
In 2022, data from Counterpoint Research shows that the mid-range Honor 60 series has contributed to helping Honor to become one of the smartphone brands with the fastest growth rate in a year in its home country, surpassing both Huawei
Mr. Nguyen Minh Khue, media representative at Viettel Store system, expressed an optimistic attitude about Honor: “This is not the first time Honor has sold smartphones in the Vietnamese market, this comeback, Honor and Viettel Store. also carefully prepared to offer appropriate product ranges and promotions to easily reach customers in the Vietnamese market.”
Sharing the same opinion, the representative of Hoang Ha Mobile system also affirmed that with the approach from low-cost products, Honor will be more competitive. “We see that Honor’s return to the market at this time is a bit less exciting, but it is also competitive, because they are starting over with low-cost product lines.”
Will sell high-end products
According to information from retail chains, although focusing on low-cost and mid-range segments, in the long term, the company plans to bring high-end product lines to the Vietnamese market.
Honor’s mid-range products will be the most focused by Viettel Store at this time, and according to our information, Honor also has high-end products in the Vietnamese market that will have a launch schedule . in the near future” , a representative of Viettel Store system revealed about Honor’s future product launch plan.
Although it is not confirmed which high-end smartphone model will be brought to the Vietnamese market by Honor, however, information from another retail chain confirms that there will be a genuine line of folding screen smartphones for sale. Currently, Honor has folding smartphones including Magic V, Magic Vs, Magic Vs Ultimate… and the upcoming Magic V2, these are all models with the same design as Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold. The price for this product line will also not be cheap.
Magic V2 is the next high-end folding smartphone about to be introduced by Honor in China this July
In addition, there will be more mid-range smartphone products in the upper and lower segment of 10 million sold in Vietnam, namely Honor 90 series, a smartphone with a beautiful design, with a 200MP camera, equipped with an iPhone-like “Dynamic Island” screen and high performance. Powerful features thanks to Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip. The specific price and launch time have not been disclosed, besides, Honor may also change its sales plan in Vietnam depending on the market situation.
Currently, Honor’s smartphone models are distributed in Vietnam ranging from the price of 1.99 million VND (Honor X5) to 8.49 million VND (Honor X9A). These products will soon be fully available in stores this July.