The opposite car buying styles of Vietnamese people in the two regions

You may have to search hard to find Vios in Ho Chi Minh City, but Hanoi is full of them. On the contrary, the South is the holy land of 7-seat Toyota cars.

After many years of continuous development of the Vietnamese automobile market, the sales ratio between the two regions is changing in the way cars are used, but the main car lines remain unchanged after many years.

The North buys more cars than the South.

The comparison table below only counts passenger cars, brands belonging to VAMA.

As in previous years, the North is slightly better than the South, the North's ratio/The South is 1.13. Explaining this fact, experts from car companies all said the reason is the same as many years ago, due to different weather conditions and living habits of people in the two regions.

The North has more complex weather conditions and has a more negative impact on human health, with four seasons causing many harsh climate patterns. Therefore, the need to buy a car to "avoid the rain and sun" of the people in the North is always present, a goal in life.

Honda sells equally between the North and the South.

In contrast, the south has only two seasons, rainy and dry, with high temperatures, no winter, and favorable weather for health. Therefore, people here do not have as high a demand for cars as the north.

However, the gap between the two regions is getting shorter, because the concept of buying cars of the younger generation of customers is closer, at the same time the demand for buying cars for business is increasing sharply. Taxi, Grab, Uber, car rental with driver, self-driving... are forms of rapid development in recent years, causing the number of cars in the South to increase accordingly.

Among the 10 brands of VAMA listed in the table above, the North is superior in most brands, while the South is more in Chevrolet and Isuzu. In particular, the two Japanese brands Honda and Toyota have the same ratio of customers in the North and South.

Small cars in the North, big cars in the South

Statistics on car purchase rate in the top 10 best-selling cars in the Vietnamese market in 2016.

Similar to the statistics table by brand above, the number of cars in the top 10 sold in the North is also higher (1.12). The North is higher than the South in 5 car models including Vios, Morning, Mazda3, CX-5 and Cerato. Most of them are small cars from Truong Hai and Vios from Toyota.

Toyota Innova sales in the South are more than double that in the North.

The South is higher than the North in 3 models: Fortuner, Innova and Honda City. Of which, the two "big" models, Fortuner and Innova, are the most popular in the transportation industry. Some taxi companies in Ho Chi Minh City said that most of the cars used are Innova.

As for Honda City, the company's explanation is that this sedan model has a sporty style, focuses on dynamic driving and operation, so it is more suitable for the personality of southerners, while most northern customers lean towards the option trend and driving feeling is not the deciding factor.

The above table also shows the rise of Ford in the South when the ratio of the company's two best-selling models, Ranger and EcoSport, is the same as in the North. In previous years, Ford sold more in the North. The trend of using pickup trucks and small SUVs helps the American car company attract more customers in the South.

Luxury car segment - the north is better

In the luxury car segment, the market picture is similar with the bright colors concentrated in the North. In 2016, Lexus sold 959 cars in the North and 706 cars in the South, Mercedes was similar with 2,057 cars in the North and 1,860 cars in the South.

Lexus sells more in the North.

These are two luxury car brands with the strongest brand power in Vietnam with many years of tradition. According to experts, customers in the North are very interested in brand value, so Mercedes and Lexus sell better. A new brand, Volvo, also recorded that its first cars were mainly sold in the North.

Super luxury car brands like Rolls-Royce sell better in the North, especially the high-end Phantom models. Meanwhile, other brands like Porsche are evenly divided, BMW is more inclined to the South, but the high-end models are often sold in the North.

This difference will gradually disappear as more and more luxury car brands appear, the young customers of the two regions have similar ways of thinking, valuing values ​​that suit their personal needs rather than just brand image. In the next few years, the number of cars sold in the two regions may be equal.

According to VNE