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COVER STORY

PHOTO: VIET TUAN
social media users out of its 99 million pop-
PERSONAL TOUCH ulation as of February 2022. On average,
Vietnamese internet users spend around 2.5
hours each day on social media, with Face-
Vietnam is a promising market in Southeast Asia for social commerce, book being the most used social media plat-
which already takes up more than half of the country’s e-commerce sector. form, accounting for 93.8 per cent of the
number of internet users aged 14 to 64, fol-

JASMINE NGUYEN Reports lowed by Zalo (91.3 per cent), TikTok (75.6

per cent), and Instagram (59.7 per cent).

Geographic and regional dynamics also
play an important role. Only about 20 per
ocial commerce, a sub-set of e- over the last few years, only within the last cent of Vietnam’s population live in large
commerce that refers to the process two years has a generation of startups begun cities, and conventional e-commerce is pri-
S of buying and selling goods or serv- harnessing the untapped potential of Viet- marily targeted at these consumers. The
ices directly within social media platforms, nam’s social commerce playing field. failure of e-commerce platforms to effec-
is not new. In Vietnam, long before tradi-
tional e-commerce established a foothold WHY IS VIETNAM IDEAL FOR SOCIAL
among tech-savvy consumers, commerce COMMERCE STARTUPS?
activities largely took place on major social Historically, Southeast Asia has been
media platforms such as Facebook, Insta- seen as a natural incubator for social com- Vietnam’s social commerce
gram, and Zalo. Serving both big-city shop- merce startups due to the region’s large industry is expected to grow
66% on an annual basis
pers and the majority of the population and fast-growing number of social media and reach $2.153 billion
who live outside of core urban centers, users. Compared to the regional rate of this year.
social commerce made up about 65 per 44 per cent, Vietnam’s social commerce
cent of Vietnam’s $22 billion e-commerce accounted for 65 per cent of its e-commerce
revenue in 2020; the highest in Southeast market size, leading the region and repre-
Asia, according to Bain & Co. senting a significant opportunity for busi-
While traditional e-commerce has grown nesses. The country is a large market for
significantly and received notable investment social media, with almost 77 million active Source: ResearchAndMarkets.com

18 | VIETNAM ECONOMIC TIMES | JUNE 2022 www.en.vneconomy.vn