Vietnam a market with highest potential: Apple CEO

In its financial report for the second quarter, Apple announced a record revenue of $83 billion, up 2% year-on-year, despite the volatile market situation.

"We set June quarter records in the Americas, in Europe and in the rest of Asia Pacific region. We also saw June quarter revenue records in both developed and emerging markets with very strong double-digit growth in Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam and a near doubling of revenue in India," Cook said during the company’s earnings call late July.

He said the company continues to "execute across some significant geographies with low penetration of iPhones between Indonesia, Vietnam and India where we did quite well."

The company's strategy is to use its smartphone model to expand its presence, with promotion of other products to follow.

"iPhone tends to be the engine for those markets, particularly at the beginning of creating the market there for Apple products."

Apple did not specify the growth rate for each region.

However, major retail systems in Vietnam have recorded that iPhone is an item that brings in the largest revenues.

Among the top 10 smartphones with the highest revenue in the first half of the year sold at electronics retail giant Mobile World, there are four iPhone models, with the top three positions being iPhone 13 Pro Max 128 GB, 13 Pro Max 256 GB and iPhone 11 64 GB.

At FPT Shop, a consumer electronics retailer, the best-selling and revenue-generating phone is also iPhone 13 Pro Max.

From the beginning of the second quarter of 2022, Apple's authorized retail systems in Vietnam have launched repeated discount programs to stimulate demand during the off-peak period. Popular models such as iPhone 11, 13 Pro Max all saw price reductions of VND2-3 million ($85.51-128.26) in this quarter.

A businessman who has monitored the mobile phone market in Vietnam for many years said that the popularity of iPhones in Vietnam was not as low as Tim Cook said it used to be. There were people who bought iPhones from abroad and to resell it in Vietnam, therefore, the market valuation statistics Cook stated was not entirely accurate.

"For the last 2-3 years, Apple has made many moves to promote users to buy iPhones from its authorized distributors in Vietnam, releasing it soon with the prices similar to those in foreign countries, and at the same time expanding the distribution system, so the growth rate is high. The double-digit growth is completely understandable," said the businessman who did not want to be named.

According to an Apple report, sales in the smartphone segment reached $40.7 billion, up nearly 3% from the same period last year.

Other than the iPhone, the only other product that increased in popularity was Apple TV Plus. Sales of other products including Mac computers, iPads and wearable devices declined.