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Android picks up pace in Vietnam

Country saw growth in both PC and media tablet markets in third quarter, reveals IDC figures, with Android tablet sales catching up to Apple iPads.
Written by Liau Yun Qing, Contributor

Boosted by the back-to-school season, the Vietnamese PC market grew in the third quarter as did the media tablet segment, albeit comparatively lower than the previous quarter, according to new stats from IDC. Tablets powered by Google Android also gave Apple "a run for [its] money".

Released Monday, the IDC report revealed that Vietnam's PC market reached 551,311 in unit shipment in the third quarter, representing a sequential growth of 13.1 percent and a year-on-year growth of 16.1 percent. Despite weak consumer demand and high vendor inventory level, the PC market saw growth in the third quarter, boosted by the back-to-school season.

IDC added that while some public sector projects boosted the shipment of PCs in the enterprise space, the government's implementation of its inflation-fighting strategy, known as Resolution 11, triggered an "adverse effect" on spending by large enterprises and small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

In a separate report, the research firm said media tablet shipment in Vietnam reached 30,000 units in the same quarter, representing a sequential growth of 26 percent. However, this was a drop from the 89.5 percent quarter-on-quarter growth seen in the previous quarter due to the dying down of the "buzz" generated from the Apple iPad 2 launch in the second quarter, said IDC.

It added that the third quarter saw vendors selling tablets powered by Google's Android mobile operating system give Apple "a run for [its] money", noting that Android's market share in Vietnam grew from 57 percent in the second quarter to 62 percent in the third quarter.

"Android tablet vendors have started to shift from a more conservative approach in Vietnam," said Thanh Vo Le Tam, senior market analyst for client devices research, IDC Vietnam. He noted that Samsung released a number of tablet devices in the third quarter, while other Android tablet vendors introduced more price-competitive products in the market.

Thanh added that the vendors would "mount a significant challenge against Apple moving forward".

With the year-end shopping season in the fourth quarter, IDC predicted that the shipments of media tablets would grow by 24 percent quarter-on-quarter.

However, quarter-on-quarter growth for Vietnam's PC market would shrink in the last quarter of 2011 due to the global shortage of hard drisk drives, said IDC. This year, total PC shipment would reach 2 million units, slightly down from previous forecasts, said IDC.

In Vietnam, the top 5 PC vendors for the third quarter were: Dell with 14.21 percent market share, Asus at 11.79 percent, Hewlett-Packard at 11.45 percent, Acer at 10 percent, and Lenovo at 6.68 percent.

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