iPhone 13 sees record sales in Vietnam

FPT Shop sold nearly 5,000 phones for nearly VND200 billion ($8.79 million) on the first day of sales on Oct. 22, breaking previous iPhone records, Nguyen The Kha, director of the chain’s mobile telecommunications division, said.

Last year it sold 4,500 iPhone 12s on the first day.

Some others reported a tripling of sales.

CellphoneS sold nearly 3,000 iPhone 13s compared to around 1,000 last year.

Minh Tuan Mobile, which began selling Apple products for the first time this year, sold 1,000 iPhone in two days.

Industry insiders said the large number of incentives that Apple is offering users this year is causing more buyers to go to authorized stores instead of buying them from sellers who pick up the devices in other countries and sell them in Vietnam.

"Apple almost did not seem to care about the Vietnam market before," a seller in HCMC’s District 1 said. "But now it offers a lot of support and commission to distributors and incentives to buyers, which makes the unauthorized market less appealing."

Another factor is that the iPhone 13 arrived in Vietnam one month earlier than the iPhone 12 last year, which came on Nov. 26.

ShopDunk, a distributor of Apple products, said it opened five new Mono Stores (exclusively selling Apple products) on the first day of iPhone 13 sales.

It also saw the number of pre-orders triple to 15,000.

A spokesperson for Minh Tuan Mobile said only 50 percent of orders could be met so far, and others have to wait.

iPhone 13 mini, the smallest and cheapest in the iPhone 13 lineup, is being sold in Vietnam at around VND18.4 million.

The remaining models cost VND21.5-VND31.9 million.