Chinese handhelds drowns famous brands in Vietnam

With 1.8 million dong ($90), consumers can buy a mobile phone with a Qwerty keyboard and two SIMs, designed similarly to Nokia E71.

In early 2006, Sony Ericsson introduced W800i worth 8 million dong. Chinese phones of the same design appeared immediately, at prices around 2 million dong, but they were of low quality.

After four years of infiltrating Vietnam, Chinese mobile phones are either handhelds manufactured by legal companies with a 1-year warranty (Hittech, K-touch) and those of unclear origin. All products have eye-catching designs, with up-to-date functions like cameras, MP3 players and touch screens.

Visiting big mobile phone shops in Hanoi, consumers see stalls for Chinese phones next to famous brands like Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson. The Chinese products are priced from 400,000 to 2.8 million dong.

Dung, the manager of a handheld supermarket on Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, noted that Chinese mobile phones are attractive for their low prices and modern designs. More importantly, official distributors of Chinese phones are in Vietnam, so users don’t worry about the quality. In addition, users can use two SIMs at the same time with Chinese phones.

Hung, a cell phone salesman, admitted that, “If we sell a Chinese phone, we will earn 50,000 dong bonus from the producer and 40,000 dong from our company. So we often introduce Chinese products before other brands to customers. Moreover, the quality of these products has been improved very much.”

According to a VNExpress survey, sales of Hittech and K-touch phones at Hanoi stores during Tet was higher than famous brands like Motorola and Sony Ericsson and just a little lower than Nokia and Samsung.

Tags: Chinese handhelds, Vietnam handhelds market, Vietnam Telecom, Vietnam telecom market