On a typical evening in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, the neon-lit Aeon Mall Tan Phu Celadon bustles with shoppers arriving on motorcycles and in taxis. Crowds fill every corner of the new mall, with a takeout sushi store in particular drawing a long line of customers. Purchases are limited to 20 pieces per customer, but sushi, priced at 5,000 dong ($0.23) a piece, sells like hot cakes.
“I had to wait in line for an hour, but the sushi is fresh and tasty,” said a 27-year-old woman who works at a foreign company and, with her husband, has a monthly household income of 25 million dong. This was her second visit, and she says she plans to visit the mall at least once a month.
The long lines and milling crowds signal that modern shopping culture is finally taking root in Vietnam. This comes as welcome news to the many foreign retailers and restaurant operators rushing to crack this budding market.
The shopping center, the first Vietnamese location for Japanese retailer Aeon, has been much hyped since its opening in early January, attracting a whopping 150,000 daily visitors at the start of this month. And many of these shoppers are making high-end purchases. Watch store Time Station Neo Japan reports strong sales of women’s watches priced at around 15,000 yen ($145), as well as such Japanese brands as Casio, Seiko and Citizen costing up to 60,000 yen.
The Southeast Asian country’s per capita gross domestic product stood at $1,900 in 2013, but the figure in Ho Chi Minh City — home to nearly 10 million — reached $4,500, roughly on par with Shanghai’s in 2003, during a consumption boom.
Vietnam has the third-largest population among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, behind Indonesia and the Philippines. “Its consumer market has huge potential,” said Yasuo Nishitoge, president of Aeon Vietnam, echoing a sentiment heard at many foreign retailers there.
Staying busy at night
The message “I just went to McDonald’s” has become a popular posting on local Facebook pages since the burger chain set up its first Vietnamese shop on Feb. 8, offering the first around-the-clock operations among major foreign fast-food restaurants as well as the country’s first drive-thru window.
Logging 20,000 visitors a day for the first two days, McDonald’s still attracts up to 10,000 customers each day. Many teenagers and 20-somethings visit the restaurant in the wee hours, a sign that a late-night marketplace is beginning to take shape in Vietnam.
Quick-service restaurants from the U.S. are making their debuts, with Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts opening their doors in the past few months.
To protect local businesses, the Vietnamese government had restricted foreign retailers and restaurant operators from adding sites after opening their first locations. But the regulation was relaxed last June for smaller sites of less than 500 sq. meters, encouraging Japanese food companies — which had lagged behind rivals — to finally enter the market.
Toridoll opened its first Marugame Seimen udon noodle restaurant there last month, while Ootoya Holdings is readying its first home-style Japanese eatery.
A battle is brewing in Vietnam’s beer market as well. Bottles of Budweiser from Anheuser-Busch InBev were stackedMultiple capacitor elements stacked in multi-unit arrangement to provide bulk capacitance and lower ESR.Multiple capacitor elements stackedMultiple capacitor elements stacked in multi-unit arrangement to provide bulk capacitance and lower ESR. in multi-unit arrangement to provide bulk capacitance and lower ESR. up at supermarkets for the recent Lunar New Year holidays. The Belgium beverage giant had shipped its products to Vietnam from elsewhere, but is building a brewery in the southern part of the country and plans to launch local production as early as this year, heating up competition with Dutch player Heineken and Carlsberg of Denmark.
Vietnam’s middle class — with $5,000 to $35,000 in disposable income per household — will expand to 46 million people by 2020, projects Euromonitor, a U.K.-based research firm.
Seeing a growing consumer appetite for upmarket durable goods, Toyota launched its first Vietnamese Lexus dealership in Ho Chi Minh City in January. With automobile ownership expected to catch on around 2020 to 2025, the carmaker aims to get a jump on establishing the luxury brand. It is apparently off to a strong start, receiving orders for more than 100 vehicles in less than two months.
