We are delighted to share with you our much insightful information regarding the potential of mobile marketing to approach rural consumers via the Vietnam Rural Report by Cốc Cốc.

MMA, in collaboration with Cốc Cốc, has established a detailed report which aims to provide marketers with valuable figures of the potential of mobile marketing in Vietnam’s rural area in 2020, especially when the rise of digitalization has great contributions to various campaigns’ success.

For the economic growth, the average monthly income per capita in the rural area has been growing rapidly in Vietnam’s rural area at a CAGR of 9.9% from 2012 to 2018 and this rate is forecasted to increase by 7.0% from 2018 to 2016. Additionally, the high-income class and the middle high-income class are expanding from 10% to 24% and from 25% to 30% of the total rural population respectively which is reflecting that the purchasing power of the rural consumers is on the rise. Along with that, there is an increase in the tendency of rural consumers for shifting from traditional to modern retailers which Mini markets are winning rural consumers with the aggressive expansion of many players.

Key Highlights:

• 60% of Vietnam’s population is still rural and they are becoming more and more digital.
• TV is declining while the internet is growing, especially smartphone, since 2018 in rural
• Smartphone is the most popular device to access to the Internet in Rural which make it the key device to go online in Rural.
• Internet penetration in rural Vietnam is now very high with 77% of people in rural Vietnam have Internet access, of which 91% access the Internet daily. The Internet is an enabler for rural consumers: they can access online resources relevant to their needs such as online shopping (70%), entertainment (79%), health and education (76%)
• Rural consumers having slightly higher penetration of social media browsing and watching video which is reported at a rate of 67% of weekly usage.
• Top 5 positive factors in advertising content/ format that marketers can leverage to approach rural consumers: Informative (54%), Humorous (53%), Relevant to my need (50%), Fun music (43%) and Short & Concise (41%).
• Search Is Another Top Information Source for online rural consumers across popular categories including apparel (97%), shopping (96%), consumer electronics (97%), entertainment (95%), jobs and education (93%), food and cooking (93%).
• With the digitalization in the rural area, Viettel to set up 12,000 4G base transceiver stations since 2015 in rural areas across Vietnam.
• There is a great potential for e-commerce growth as Vietnam has rural and mountainous regions currently underserved by e-commerce providers, leading to high logistic costs for online merchants who do sell in these regions.
• The Covid-19 pandemic leads to the changes in rural consumer’s purchasing behavior, they only purchase additional goods during the pandemic re-outbreak, after a large bundle shopping for Tet. To prepare for “pandemic”: home care and personal care; immunity booster; other convenient necessaries are reconsidered in consumers’ wish lists and there is an increase in shopping frequency for packaged food or packaged products.