Foreign brands dominate GfK’s electronics brands survey ‘08
By Nhan Tam - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – Foreign brands topped the list of best-selling electronic products in Vietnam last year under the fifth survey conducted by the market research group GfK, which said the local technology market still fared magnificently despite the economic slump.
Of the 21 electronic brands included in the survey, DVD players by Vietnam’s Chau Electronics was the only local brand taking the top spot, with over 792,000 units sold last year, while foreign brands took all the remaining 20 
titles.
The fifth year of GfK Asia No.1 Brand Awards in Vietnam measured consumption of a wide range of items, from consumer electronics and home appliances to information technology products and mobile phones among others. Many of them have appeared on the list for the fifth consecutive year.
In the segment of LCD monitors and LCD TVs, Samsung took the lead while Nokia continued to be on top of the segment of mobile phones in Vietnam and Sanyo topped for household electric products like microwave ovens, fridges and washing machines. LG led the segment of home theaters with an estimated 25,000 units sold, while HP and Acer were the leaders in the printer and laptop markets. Panasonic was praised as the best for air conditioners.
However, for digital cameras, Nikon was the top brand, replacing Canon, while in the segment of consumer printing, HP replaced Acer.
The key criteria of this selection are the volume of products sold by the retail network from January to December 2008. Concerned brands must have their own domestic distribution networks.
On the occasion, GfK also announced the estimated total market volume in 2008 in each segment so that consumers and retailers have an overview of Vietnam’s electronics market last year.
There were nearly 8.3 million mobile phones and nearly 1.4 million fridges sold last year, while sales of desktop computers almost reached the number of one million units. LCD monitors passed one million units.
GfK also announced that Vietnam’s technology market last year maintained high growth, at an estimated 21%.
The electronics segment witnessed a growth rate of 19% against 2007, while that for the IT sector was 26%, telecommunications 27%, and home appliances 25%.
The technology market’s total revenue last year amounted to US$3.9 billion. This shows the economic slump did not have a strong adverse impacts on both consumers and retailers.