HCM City (VNA) – Vietnamese businesses are increasingly recognising the urgent need to establish a strong brand presence in the digital space, delegates heard at a workshop on expanding market share and building brand identity held in Ho Chi Minh City on September 9.

Speaking at the event, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Dung said that while the domestic market and the digital space are opening up fresh opportunities, they also present serious challenges, notably the fierce competition from international brands that enjoy both scale and quality advantages.

HCM City is home to more than 500,000 enterprises and contributes over 20% of the country’s GDP. The southern largest economic hub, following its recent administrative merger, is now embarking on a new phase of development with the ambition of becoming an international megacity. This transition not only expands development capacity but also shapes the country’s largest integrated economic - trade - logistics triangle. The growth in scale will inevitably be accompanied by a sharp rise in the number of businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises.

In this context, building and positioning Vietnamese brands has become an urgent task, Dung stressed. Only when each enterprise and each Vietnamese product has a clear and credible brand identity, especially in the digital space, can they compete effectively, leverage production and supply chains, and orientate exports.

According to Dr Dinh The Hien, Director of the Institute for Informatics and Applied Economics, Vietnamese brands are slowly expanding their presence online. However, they largely remain in the low- to mid-price segment and have yet to project the strong, distinctive image seen among peers in other regional economies.

For Vuong Ngoc Dung, a marketing director at the Saigon Cosmetics Corporation (SCC), the defining feature of digital brand positioning is the ability to build direct trust. He stressed that businesses must foster “digital trust” by ensuring transparency of information and offering diverse channels of interaction. Only then could Vietnamese brands compete both at home and abroad.

From the perspective of industry associations, Nguyen Minh Duc, Deputy Secretary-General of the Vietnam E-commerce Association, noted that the greatest weakness of Vietnamese firms is a lack of long-term strategies. Many enter e-commerce without sufficient investment or planning, which prevents them from developing a strong brand identity.

🐬 He described e-commerce as a “wave” that could either help Vietnamese products secure their home turf and increase presence in foreign markets, or, if not seized with proper preparation, sweep away fragile brands lacking solid foundations in the digital era./.