The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled a significant uptick in e-commerce, which recorded a 16% growth last year. In 2021, it reached US$ 13.7 billion in retail revenue, according to the White Book on Vietnamese E-business 2022.
Although the pandemic drove the e-commerce market, it slowed down economic growth, which was the lowest in 30 years last year (2.58%), with key services sub-sectors experiencing a downturn. Data from the General Statistics Office showed that retailing and wholesaling declined 0.21% year-on-year, causing the economy to decrease by 0.02 percentage points. Warehouse and logistics dropped by 5.02% and lodging and catering services by 20.81%, leading to a drop in contribution by 0.3% and 0.51%, respectively, to the GDP growth.
Meanwhile, the share of turnover from e-retailing to last year’s total retail sales of goods and services was 7%, a year-on-year rise of 27% from 2020. E-retailing is forecast to surge 20% this year to US$ 16.4 billion, compared to US$ 5 billion in 2015. A 2022 study by a big data analysis company indicated that Vietnam is emerging as the second largest e-commerce market in Southeast Asia, second only after Indonesia.
The White Book on Vietnamese E-business 2022 also reported that with online marketplaces now a vital distribution channel in the era of digitalisation, Vietnamese enterprises are investing more in expanding their presence on these platforms. Those doing business on social networks, spurred 41% in 2021 and 57% in 2022, according to the book.
In September, OpenGov Asia reported that Vietnam’s e-commerce value will reach US$ 39 billion by 2025. The total revenue of Vietnam’s Internet economy is forecast to reach US$ 57 billion by 2025. Vietnam has the second highest percentage of consumers shopping online in the region, after Singapore. The country’s business-to-customer (B2C) retail e-commerce revenue this year is estimated at US$ 16.4 billion.
It is estimated that for the first time, the number of online shopping consumers in Vietnam will reach 57 million people. The value of online shopping for the first time reached US$ 260- $285 per person. The proportion of B2C e-commerce revenue will exceed 7%, reaching a 7.2%-7.8% market share in the total retail sales of consumer goods and services in Vietnam. On a global scale, retail e-commerce revenue will reach around US$ 5.6 billion this year, up about 12.7%. It is forecast that this number would reach US$ 7.4 billion by 2025.
The Minister-Chairman of the Government Office, Tran Van Son, recently said that Vietnam’s GDP growth in 2022 and 2023 will be among the highest in Southeast Asia as shown in many international organisations’ forecasts and assessments of the Vietnamese economic outlook. The World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have projected Vietnam will achieve a GDP growth of 7.2%, 7%, and 6.5%, respectively, this year/
The economy is back on track, Son said, noting that the GDP growth hit 13.6% in the third quarter of 2022 and 8.83% in the first nine months of the year, the highest since 2011. The nine-month GRDP growth exceeded 11% in 10 localities. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City recorded a GRDP growth of 9.97% and 9.69%, respectively, during the period.