Small firms still economic dynamos

Vietnam and small domestic appliances continue to reign as the most prosperous growth market and category respectively.

Market research firm GfK Asia Pte Ltd recently released its Technical Market Index on technical consumer goods which revealed that Vietnam enjoyed 28 per cent growth in value of technical consumer goods, the highest among Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore and Taiwan.

Besides Vietnam, other surveyed markets also saw strong double-digit growth including Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Thailand with 17, 17, 14 and 10 per cent respectively. Singapore (4 per cent) and Taiwan (2 per cent) also managed to register single-digit increases. Korea was at the bottom with a slight decrease of 2 per cent.

According to the research firm, small domestic appliances in 2010 continued to be the best performers with 24 per cent growth in the eight combined markets. In countries such as Vietnam and Singapore, growth hit as high as 40 per cent.

Stanley Kee, regional commercial director of GfK Asia, said: “Vietnam, Indonesia and Hong Kong are three countries which boasted positive growth in every single one of the categories we track. Of the three categories across all the markets which reported exponential growth of over 40 per cent, two came from Vietnam. The country’s small domestic appliances and telecommunications panels grew 42 and 41 per cent over the previous year, pushing the country to the top of the table.”

“Some of the other noteworthy findings are the good showings of consumer electronics in Vietnam (39 per cent), major domestic appliances in Indonesia (33 per cent) and telecommunications in Malaysia (30 per cent) – all of which managed to achieve no less than 30 per cent growth,” added Kee. – VIR

Tags: Vietnam companies, Vietnam enterprises, Vietnam SMEs