Customer Behavior of Instant Noodles in Hcmc, Vietnam

In 2013, the Vietnamese’s demands for instant noodles have increased to a peak of 5.2 million of packs. However, the consumption of instant noodles has steadily declined in the past four years and there is no sign of stop, down to 4.8 million packs in 2015. In 2016, Vietnam has fallen to fourth place in world rank of instant noodles consumption.

World Instant Noodles Association (WINA) has judged that this was the general trend of the world. Except India, the largest instant noodles market, including China, Indonesia and Japan have reduced their demands. In Vietnam, the unofficial information about something harmful in instant noodles confuses consumers, makes them change their habits, then reduce noodles consumption or move to other food such as Bun, Pho. Takashi Igarashi, Igarashi’s CEO, has mentioned that Vietnamese’s eating trend is to protect their health, and this habit of eating instant noodles shall not be disappeared but it shall move to a new form with higher requirements of quality and safety. Therefore, Igarashi Seimen has used Japanese retail system such as Family Mart Supermarket, Aeon… to introduce in Vietnam market the Japanese high quality instant noodles.

The market has showed that instant noodles consumption was decreased in low segment as the consumers reducing their purchases due to the difficulty of financial conditions. Meanwhile, in the middle and high segment are having a fiercely competition between products imported from Thailand, Korean and Japan.

It is estimated in Instant noodles market, there are more than 50 companies, of which 70% are VinaCook, Masan Consumer and Asia Foods. For Acecook, although it holds for nearly 50% of the market share, but its revenue is continuingly declined, from 10.000 billion VND in 2013 to about 9.000 billion VND in 2014-2015.

When consumers are cautious of fried noodles, Masan Consumer brought out potato noodles, salmon noodles... Even so, profit from Masan’s instant noodles was still decreased to about 20% in 2016 which compared with 2015. Many experts in this industry thought that because the consumption of noodles was down, the competition in this market was fierce.