Bich Ngoc, who earns less than $60 a week and has a newborn son,
cobbled together four months of savings to buy the latest iPhone so she
could impress her colleagues who have older versions of the device.
“I
like the iPhone because it is small, light and very delicate,” said
Ngoc, a 24-year-old accountant in Hanoi who purchased the device last
week. “Everyone seems a bit jealous.” Apple Inc. (AAPL) is looking to consumers such as Ngoc in Vietnam
and across Southeast Asia willing to spend more than two months salary
on an iPhone or iPad, as it seeks sales amid competition with Samsung Electronics Co. (005930)
Apple is tapping FPT Corp., Vietnam’s biggest listed information and
communication technology company, to roll out retail outlets in major
cities as part of a regional push.
“One of the biggest moves Apple is making is in Southeast Asia,” Tim Bajarin, president of technology consulting firm Creative Strategies Inc. based in San Jose, California,
said in a phone interview. “If you look at the numbers, Android has
passed Apple in smartphones, and it has made huge strides in tablets
this year.”
Smartphones based on Android, which Google Inc. (GOOGL)
provides to hardware manufacturers for free, made up 78 percent of the
global industry in 2013, up from 66 percent in 2012, according to Gartner Inc. (IT)
Apple’s iPhone was second with 16 percent, down from 19 percent.
Apple’s share of the global tablet market dropped to 36 percent in 2013
from 53 percent the year earlier, while Samsung jumped to 19 percent in
2013 from 7 percent, according to Gartner.
Photographer: Hoang Dinh Nam via AFP/Getty Images
Customers use wireless devices at a coffee shop in downtown Hanoi.
‘Status Symbol’
Apple has risen 19 percent this
year and closed at $95.32 July 15. FPT shares have rallied 32 percent
this year, out-pacing the 17 percent advance in the benchmark VN Index
of Vietnamese stocks. FPT fell 0.2 percent at the close today.
Apple’s push into Southeast Asia
comes as the company forms a partnership with IBM to expand its mobile
technology into the global corporate arena with business-specific
software for iPads and iPhones. Apple aims to use its collaboration with
IBM on data analysis, cloud and mobile technology to deepen its reach
into businesses.
Apple products are popular in Vietnam, where a
brand-savvy young population covets the instant recognition a slender
iPhone brings, said Lam Nguyen, Ho Chi Minh City-based country director
at International Data Corp. He predicts Vietnam smartphone sales will
increase 56 percent to about 12 million units in 2014, and Apple will
get a good chunk of that.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Apple logo.
“There are more and cheaper alternatives out there,” Nguyen
said in a phone interview. “This is about a relatively affordable status
symbol. It’s fashion.”
Minimalist
Sales of iPhones in Vietnam soared 262 percent in Apple’s fiscal first half ended March 29, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said during a conference call with analysts April 23.
Michaela
Wilkinson, a spokeswoman at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino,
California declined to comment about the company’s Vietnam and Southeast
Asia retail strategy.
FPT’s F.Studio stores, styled after Apple
outlets in developed markets, feature minimalist interiors and
English-speaking store clerks clad in black and trained by the
iPhone-maker.
A sparsely appointed F.Studio with stark black and
white tables displaying polished devices sits incongruously on a Hanoi
street with blaring motorbikes and women in conical hats hawking
lychees. Inside the store, sales staff handle the devices with the
delicate touch of diamond sellers.
Vietnam Focus
“Here
I can trust the quality and get support from the staff,” Vuong Ha, 41,
said during a recent visit to the store. She held off buying her first
iPhone until F.Studio opened in Hanoi for fear of buying a fake device, a common concern among Vietnamese consumers.
Photographer: Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images
A woman walks past a shop selling Apple Inc.'s Iphone 5C and Iphone 5S in downtown... Read More
“I would not dare to spend this much money on an iPhone from another store,” she said.
FPT
last year qualified as the country’s “premium” reseller, allowing it to
sell Apple’s range of products, from iPods to iPhones, CEO Bui Quang
Ngoc said in an interview in his company’s headquarters in Hanoi. For
years Apple brushed off FPT’s requests for a partnership, he said.
Apple’s
retail priorities were elsewhere, Ngoc said. “Then they started to
focus on Vietnam,” he said. “It’s a big change for Apple. Southeast Asia
is a big market.”
As part of its increased focus on Southeast
Asia, Apple also has retailing relationships similar to the one with FPT
with local chains in countries including Malaysia and Thailand.
Regional Sales
Apple made 26 percent of its sales from Asia Pacific in its fiscal second quarter, with 20 percent from the greater China region, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. Japan, which isn’t included in the Asia Pacific figures, represented 9 percent of Apple’s sales.
FPT’s
relationship with Apple will “allow them to generate residual success
off of Apple’s popularity,” Patrick Mitchell, head of institutional
sales at VinaSecurities JSC, said in a phone interview in Ho Chi Minh City.
“We
have worked with other vendors like Oracle, IBM, HP, Nokia, Samsung,
Motorola, etc, but Apple is very special,” Ngoc said. “Apple people are
very strict. It’s not so easy working with Apple.”
Before
getting hired at F.Studio outlets, potential employees face multiple
interviews then receive extensive training from FPT supervisors schooled
by Apple representatives, FPT said.
Stringent demands of how
its products are sold by overseas partners allows Apple to “control its
brand,” said Matthew Crabbe, Asia Pacific research director at Mintel
Group Ltd in Kuala Lumpur.
Brand Loyalty
Increasingly, the battle for brand loyalty is shifting to Southeast Asia, he said.
The Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board approved a preliminary application from Apple to open its first official store in Southeast Asia store, the government said earlier this year.
“China
is a big market, but it’s also a competitive and maturing market,”
Crabbe said in a phone interview. “There is a growing consumer economy
in Southeast Asia. Apple understands if you are going to get in, get in
quick. You have to establish yourself, engage with consumers. Things
move rapidly.”
To contact the reporters on this story: John Boudreau in Hanoi at jboudreau3@bloomberg.net; Nguyen Kieu Giang in Hanoi at giang1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net Dick Schumacher, K. Oanh Ha
