Delivery service CEOs resign after one week on the job

“I decided to leave Ahamove because I no longer fit the company’s development strategy. The fact that Truong and I left Ahamove must not be blamed on the pressure or money from Grab,” wrote Tran Duc Huy, marketing director of Ahamove on his personal page.

Just three days before, Go-Viet’s CEO Nguyen Vu Duc and deputy CEO Nguyen Linh resigned from their posts due to the company’s standstill in business growth. The company has made no headway with three major services – e-hailing, food ordering and delivery.

Since the day e-hailing firms began joining the delivery market, many forwarding firms have fallen into deadlock. The collapse of GNN Express is an example. In September 2018, it unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy.

Hoang Ngoc, who was CEO of VNN Express at the time, took responsibility for mismanagement and the loss of VND5.5 billion.

Currently, Grab (with Grab Food, Grab Express services), Go-Viet (Go-Send, Go-Food) and Now are the biggest players in the inner-city delivery market.

Go-Food and Grab Food offer 50 percent discount rate and free delivery to those who place orders via apps. Grab has attracted many customers with its ‘999 zero-dong glasses of bubble tea’ program.

The delivery firms are accepting losses to lure customers. And in order to keep operating, they have to have long-term capital.

Grab and Go-Jek, the holding company of Go-Viet, have successfully called for huge capital of up to billions of dollars. Meanwhile, Now is backed by the powerful Tencent.

Go-Viet, after eight months of operation, raised the discount rate to 20 percent, which caused drivers to leave for other companies.

Grab continues running sale promotion programs, and its rivals seem to be leaving for provincial markets.

According to the latest report of the Vietnam E-commerce Association (Vecom), Vietnam Post and Viettel Post are still holding the largest market share. However, their market share in the two largest cities of Hanoi and HCM City has shrunk because of the strong rise of Grab, Go-Viet and Now in a short-distance delivery service.

The hot development of the e-commerce market, analysts believe, will cause the high growth in the delivery industry. The e-commerce market was valued at $8.06 billion in 2018 and the figure is expected to rise to $15 billion, according to Vecom.