Foreign household appliances overwhelm domestic market

Big C supermarket in Phu Nhuan District, for example, sells cups, glasses and dishes imported mainly from Thailand. Hundreds of glasses and vases under Thailand's O. brand sell for VND1,000-100,000 each.

Only a few Vietnamese brand products can be found on shelves.

Similarly, imported household appliance products in bulk are showcased at Maximark supermarket in District 10, with 80% of them from Japan, China and Thailand.

Co.op Mart and Lotte supermarket are full of plastic household appliance products from Thailand such as trays, bowls, washing-basins and tissue boxes.

Hundreds of blenders and rice cookers under the brand name of Philips, Sharp and Panasonic, sourced from China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, have become more popular while Vietnamese products can be counted on the fingers of a hand.

Consumer Thanh Hang from Binh Thanh District said she wanted to give priority to locally-made products but was disappointed about designs offered by domestic businesses.

Not only supermarkets but also retail stores have seen a dominance of foreign imported goods. For instance, at Ba Chieu household appliance store in Binh Thanh District, induction ovens, electric ovens and rice cookers predominate over local products.

The store staff said Malaysian and Thai products had higher prices than Vietnamese items but were still favoured by consumers because of the variety of designs.

Attractive designs

Huynh Thi My, general secretary of Viet Nam Plastics Association, said the most worrisome problem for plastic home appliances was how to create eye-catching designs to compete with imported products, mostly from Thailand.

Local products satisfy demand for cheap costs, but for the long term, they will not have a sustainable competitive advantage, according to My.

"Domestic businesses are now ‘winners' surpassing Thai in medium- and low-cost segments, but if the economy develops well and people's living conditions improve, some consumers will possibly shift their options to use imported luxury products," she said.

Among 300 plastic home-appliance businesses, there are 10 large enterprises with their large production scale that can meet the demands and tastes of consumers in big cities.

Truong Dinh Truong from My Linh Nhi Co. in District 12, which specialises in imported Chinese glass items and Thailand plastics for re-distribution, said thanks to easy imports and tax exemptions, many companies were operating in this sector.

"Thai plastic home appliances are priced 10-15% higher than local products but are still imported in great quantities," he said.

In HCM City, there are now hundreds of companies specialising in transporting imported goods into Vietnam.

Tran Ngoc De, a representative for a transportation firm in Phu Nhuan District, HCM City said many Thai items were transported to HCM City by road with the express transport price of 60,000-70,000 per kilo within four days and VND50,000-60,000 per kilo within seven days, depending on the items.

Other products from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore are mainly transported by air at a cost of US$8-9 per kilo and by sea at VND10,000-15,000 per kilo.