More than half of mobile phone transactions whose prices are over VND10 million (US$439) are purchased on installment payments, according to statistics of Mobile World Group, FPT Shop and CellphoneS.
At Mobile World, the mobile phone distributor chain that accounts for some 40 per cent of the mobile market share in Viet Nam, 48 per cent of customers choose the installment payment method for products worth over VND10 million.
FPT Shop -- the mobile phone retail chain that follows Mobile World in terms of market share -- recorded 60 per cent of people buying phones priced at a minimum of VND10 million by paying installments.
Meanwhile, retailer CellphoneS said this segment also has 56 per cent of payments made using loans from financial institutions.
Buyers can pay in advance partially and then choose to pay the balance in installments for a period of six to 12 months.
"FPT Shop cooperates with companies and partners to provide customers with interest rate of zero per cent or VND0 incentive programmes," an FPT Shop representative said.
Total sales of mobile phones through installments at Mobile World account for 26 per cent of total handset sales, although revenue from selling handsets is up 47 per cent, or nearly half of the revenue.
The installment payment method is not only popular for high-end phones. At Mobile World, 61 per cent of buyers in the VND4.5 million-10 million segment of mobile phones prefer to pay in installments, which at CellphoneS the figure is 38 per cent. At FPT Shop, half of the buyers in the VND5-10 million segment choose bank loans for payment.
For the less than VND4.5 million mobile phone segment, the number of buyers who choose the installment payment method is also high. At Mobile World, 11 per cent of people buying handsets under VND4.5 million choose to pay via installments and at CellphoneS this figure is 6 per cent.
Vo Le Tam Thanh, market researcher of IDC Viet Nam, explained the increasing average price of phones, or Vietnamese people spending more money on smartphones, is due to the installment options available at mobile supermarkets. — VNS