Just a short time after opening in the home country earlier this summer, Taiwan’s brown-sugar milk tea ice cream appeared in Vietnam in mid-May. Despite the high price of VND60,000, the new popsicle product is still selling like hotcakes.

Statista predicted that Vietnam’s ice cream market is valued at $74 million in 2019 and it will keep the CAGR of 7.4 percent in 2019-2023, higher than the 4.8 percent of the sweets market.

Kantar Worldpanel reported that while the entire FMCG market saw a low growth rate of 5.2 percent in rural areas, not including four large cities, the ice cream sector saw a double growth rate and had the highest rate of customer access in the last three years.

A study of Kantar Worldpanel found that in summer 2018, each family in Vietnam consumed 1.7 kilograms of ice cream and spent VND26,000 for each purchase.

The ice cream market in Vietnam is attractive, but the competition is getting more cutthroat.

The arrival of foreign brands, preferential tariffs on imports from many countries under the framework of FTAs, plus support by foreign distributors and the development of online channels all have made the market hot.

A report found that Kido Food and Vinamilk held nearly 50 percent of the domestic ice cream market by 2017. Unilever Vietnam’s Corneto brand held 6.1 percent of market shares, ranked third.

2018 was the first year Kido, which leads the ice cream market, saw minus growth rate in revenue. The company reported 12.3 percent growth rate decrease in ice cream and 32.3 percent in yoghurt.

A similar situation could be seen at Thuy Ta, a long lasting ice cream brand in Hanoi, with revenue decreasing by 3.1 percent compared with 2017.

It’s still too early to predict the attractiveness of the Taiwanese product, since the peak season has just started.

Diversifying products is the strategy that all ice cream makers have to follow to retain and expand market.

In 2018, Vinamilk launched a new product named Yolo, while Kido Food marketed a series of new products the year before. A report from Euromonitor showed that green tea ice cream has become popular. It has jumped from the seventh position in 2013 to fourth among favorite products.

Some large Vietnamese businesses have also developed products with green tea. Vinamilk, for example, has Twin Cows and Nestle Vietnam has Kit Kat Green Tea.

Thanh Lich 

New faces and flavours intensify ice cream competition

Not much after going on sale in Taiwan, brown sugar bubble ice cream has been selling through online shops in Vietnam since May.

I scream for ice cream!

Feeling a little hot under the collar as summer arrives? Don't worry, here's the tastiest way to cool down! Have you tried an ice cream at one of Hanoi's oldest ice cream parlours?