Retailer Mobile World has captured a significant share of Vietnam’s watches market in quick time, achieving robust sales from the get-go. 

Mobile World has cornered 15 percent of Vietnam's watches market
in less than six months.

Mobile World, the nation’s leading mobile phone retailer, started to experiment with the 'shop-in-shop' model by selling watches in March 2019.

In quick time, it has achieved a significant 15 per cent market share. It sold more than 50,000 watches in September alone, surpassing its own expectations and that of local distributors.

Currently, local suppliers have run out of stocks for Mobile World, prompting the retailer to start buying products from the original source to ease off dependence on middlemen.

At present, the watch retail market in Vietnam is estimated to be worth more than VND18 trillion ($778 million). However, the market is quite fragmented as there is no store chain that has a market share of more than 20 per cent.

Market research firm Euromonitor International has forecasted Vietnam’s jewelry and watch retail market to grow a compound annual growth rate of 7 per cent between 2017-2021 and reach VND43 trillion ($1.86 billion) in 2021.

The growth of this market is driven by rising disposable income, optimistic consumer confidence index and 30 million millennials (ages 18-34) who increasingly seek products that express their personalities.

As soon as it jumped on the watches bandwagon, Mobile World set about its task in a professional manner, offering consumers products at affordable prices and maximizing consumer benefits with its warranty policies and efficient after sales service, the firm stated in a release.

Such an approach has put the company on the path to opening 100 stores by September 30 and 200 by the end of the year, with sales reaching 300,000 watches this year. It also targets opening 500 watch shops by the end of next June with the target of selling 2.5 million watches for the whole year.

Mobile World CEO Doan Van Hieu Em said: "We still have much room to grow in this segment and thus are willing to build a long-term, trustworthy partnership with any watch manufacturer."

For two consecutive years, Mobile World has been recognized as the only Vietnamese representative among the Top 100 Asia-Pacific Retailers by Retail Asia Magazine and Euromonitor, and among the top 50 listed companies by Forbes Asia (Asia’s Fab 50).