Vietnamese eat instant noodles most frequently worldwide

The country consumed 8.48 billion servings last year, according to the World Instant Noodles Association.

On average each Vietnamese ate 85 servings, or one every four days.

That is the highest frequency globally, followed by South Korea and Thailand.

In terms of total consumption, Vietnam ranked third last year behind China with 45 billion servings and Indonesia with 14.2 billion.

Noodle producers have been taking advantage of the large demand by introducing new products regularly to boost sales.

Acecook and Masan are the two leaders in the instant noodles market with a combined share of 33%, according to Euromonitor.

Acecook said it sold 3.3 billion servings last year.

Masan did not disclose its volume but in 2021 it said two of its noodles brands each fetched a revenue of over VND2 trillion.

Another competitor, Asia Foods, posted revenue of over VND5 trillion each year in 2017-2021.

Uniben saw revenue rise 12% to 3.4 trillion in 2021.

Kaneda Hiroki, Acecook Vietnam CEO, said that the company saw noodles sales rising 10% year-on-year in the first six months.

"We target to sell 3.5 billion servings in Vietnam this year, up 6% from 2022," Hiroki said.

The company is focusing on introducing new noodles products made from rice, to meet increasing demand.