Vietnamese smartphone market: Xiaomi, Apple grow strongly

IDC has just released a report on the Vietnamese smartphone market in 2021. Accordingly, smartphone sales in Vietnam market reached 15.9 million units with a growth of 11.9% in 2021. The company forecasts that growth in 2022 will reach 22%, which is almost double the year last. Due to the policy of stopping the import of phones that only support 2G, the Vietnamese smartphone market has a stronger growth momentum in the fourth quarter of 2021 and in this 2022.

According to data, the 5 biggest smartphone brands in the market in 2021 are still familiar names: Samsung, Oppo, Apple, Xiaomi, Vivo. In which, the two leading positions have not changed for at least the past 7 years.

For the whole year, Apple and Xiaomi had impressive growth in the number of devices imported (shipment). In 2020, Xiaomi imported 1.2 million units, and increased to 2 million units in 2021. Apple also increased from 0.9 million to 1.4 million units.

In the second quarter of 2021, Xiaomi surpassed Oppo to take the No. 2 market share in Vietnam, but that is all it can do in the whole of 2021. Oppo still proves its rich experience in maintaining No. 2 market share after Samsung.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, Samsung continued to lead the way, holding 28.7% of the smartphone market share in Vietnam thanks to strong growth in the low-cost smartphone segment.

In 2021, the Korean brand shipped 5.3 million smartphones, up 27.1% over the same period in 2020, and its market share also increased to 33.3% compared to 29.3 % of 2020.

Although Samsung is growing across many different sales channels, most of the brand’s expansion in 2021 will still come from retail. By the end of 2021, Samsung will begin to strengthen its presence by expanding brand-exclusive stores.

Oppo won the runner-up position with 17.3% market share in the fourth quarter of 2021. The Oppo A95 and A55 models contributed greatly to Oppo’s sales in Q4 2021, while the Reno series was also well received by users.

Vivo finished in third place with 16.1% in the last quarter of 2021, also the time when it launched a series of new smartphone models. For the whole year of 2021, Vivo achieved a market share of 11.7% with a growth of 29.4% compared to 2020.

Apple ranked 4th when it sold 548.3 thousand iPhones, down 1.8% over the same period last year. Despite supply constraints, their iPhone 13 series still performed quite well and became the main driver of sales in the fourth quarter of 2021 – when Apple expanded cooperation with domestic retail partners. to open chains of stores specializing in Apple sales.

Over the past year, Apple has expanded its presence in the Vietnamese retail market with brand-exclusive stores operated by major partners such as The Gioi Di Dong, ShopDunk, and FPT Shop.

Also in the fourth quarter of 2021, Xiaomi has sold 546.9 thousand phones – this number is close to Apple and helps the Chinese brand firmly in the 5th position in terms of sales. For the whole year of 2021, Xiaomi achieved a market share of 12.7%, corresponding to 2 million smartphones sold, significantly up from 8.3% in 2020.

Low-cost models like Redmi 9A/9/9C/9T are the mainstay of Xiaomi’s sales while high-end models like the Mi 11 series have positive sales, contributing more than the modest level of the Mi series. 10 years earlier.

Due to the development momentum of 5G in Vietnam and the policy of restricting basic phones, IDC forecasts that the smartphone development rate in Vietnam in 2022 will be the highest in Southeast Asia.