Foreign Brands in Vietnam 2025: China's Push South, Japan's Quiet Rise, and 50,000 Closures

[Foreign Brands in Vietnam 2025: China's Push South, Japan's Quiet Rise, and 50,000 Closures]

Vietnam's retail market hit USD 269 billion in 2025, its fastest growth in five years. E-commerce alone accounted for USD 32 billion, pushing online penetration past 12% for the first time. Household spending rose 6% in real terms to USD 138.5 billion.

But the number that matters most is demographic. McKinsey estimates that 40% of Vietnam's population had real spending power by 2020. By 2030, that share is projected to reach 75% — meaning another 36 million people are about to cross the threshold into meaningful consumption.

For foreign brands, Vietnam is a market of 100 million people where spending power is rising fast and brand loyalties haven't hardened yet. The window is open. It won't stay open forever.

Here's what happened in 2025.

▍ China's Brands Go South: From Mixue to Chagee

The biggest shift in Vietnam's retail market last year was the systematic arrival of Chinese consumer brands.

Chinese F&B chains had opened more than 6,100 outlets across Southeast Asia by the end of 2025, according to a Momentum Works report. Indonesia and Vietnam together accounted for roughly two-thirds of that total. This wasn't a handful of companies making opportunistic bets. With China's domestic market saturated and price wars grinding margins to nothing, Southeast Asia became the industry's second front.

Mixue led the charge. The bubble tea giant opened its first overseas store in Hanoi in 2018. By September 2024, its IPO prospectus showed 1,304 stores in Vietnam alone. Globally, Mixue posted RMB 33.5 billion in revenue for 2025, up 35.2%, with profits of RMB 5.9 billion, up 33.1%.

But there's a twist. Mixue's Vietnam store count started shrinking. By mid-2025, its total overseas outlets had dropped to 4,733, down 162 from the end of 2024. Vietnam and Indonesia were the main markets where stores closed. The company shifted from blitz-scaling to optimizing: relocated stores saw daily revenue jump over 50%, and new stores in Southeast Asia generated 1.7 times the revenue of existing ones.

Opening stores in Vietnam is easy. Opening them in the right spots is the hard part.

Haidilao took a different approach. The Chinese hotpot chain pulled in USD 43.6 million in Vietnam in the first half of 2025, more than 10% of its global revenue. Vietnam outperformed Singapore, the US, and Malaysia, making it one of Haidilao's top four markets worldwide.

The most dramatic China-brand story of 2025, though, belonged to Chagee. The tea chain had 6,681 stores globally and big plans for Vietnam. In March, Chagee invited Vietnamese users on Facebook to download its app for a store launch event in HCMC. Users discovered the app's login screen appeared to display China's nine-dash line — a territorial claim over the South China Sea that Vietnam fiercely rejects.

The backlash was instant. A single protest post drew 32,000 angry reactions. The app was pulled from both Google Play and the App Store in Vietnam. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was coordinating an investigation.

Chagee's first Vietnam store eventually opened in July, quietly relocated from District 1 to District 7 in HCMC. The brand's official Vietnamese Facebook page didn't even announce it.

For any Chinese brand eyeing Vietnam, the lesson is clear: Vietnamese consumers will buy your products, but they will not tolerate anything that touches sovereignty.

▍ Japan's Brands Accelerate: A Quieter Kind of Expansion

Japanese brands played a completely different game in Vietnam. Instead of chasing store counts, they targeted the lifestyle upgrade that Vietnam's growing middle class is hungry for.

MUJI had 17 stores in Vietnam by the end of its 2025 fiscal year, making it the brand's third-fastest-growing market globally after Japan and China. The target for 2026 is 20 stores, with a first location in Da Nang. Five years after opening its first Vietnamese store, MUJI's growth pace says a lot about what Vietnam's urban consumers want.

In November, Japanese eyewear brand JINS entered Vietnam for the first time, opening three stores in HCMC at once. The flagship landed in Saigon Centre. Vietnam became JINS's eighth global market.

UNIQLO opened its 30th Vietnamese store in October at Vincom Le Van Viet in HCMC and announced it would enter Da Nang for the first time in summer 2026. Like MUJI, Japanese brands are pushing beyond the two-city axis of Hanoi and HCMC into Vietnam's third-largest city.

▍ Retail Giants Double Down: AEON, Central Retail, Lotte

If Chinese and Japanese brands represent "brand entry," AEON, Central Retail, and Lotte represent infrastructure bets. These three foreign retail groups measure their Vietnam investments in billions of dollars. They're building for the next decade.

Japan's AEON had the busiest year. It opened four new shopping centers and retail locations in 2025. The September launch of AEON Tan An in Long An province marked the group's first presence in the Mekong Delta. By year-end, AEON operated 8 shopping centers, 15 general merchandise stores and supermarkets, 45 smaller supermarkets, and 180 convenience stores in Vietnam. The long-term goal: triple the scale of its Vietnam operations by 2030.

Thailand's Central Retail kept pace. Two new GO! Malls opened in Hung Yen and Yen Bai provinces in 2025, pushing into second- and third-tier cities. Central Retail's FY2025 revenue reached THB 253.165 billion, with Q4 core profit up 17% year-on-year. Vietnam was a key growth driver. Between 2022 and 2027, the company plans to invest USD 1.45 billion in Vietnam and double its store count to 600.

South Korea's Lotte saw its Vietnam operations surge in 2024, with revenue up 20% and operating profit up 216.9%. The flagship Lotte Mall West Lake Hanoi, which opened in 2023, cost over USD 600 million. Lotte plans to add two to three more large shopping malls in major Vietnamese cities by 2030.

All three are making the same statement with their checkbooks: Vietnam's retail growth is a trend they're willing to bet a decade on.

▍ Other New Arrivals Worth Watching

The brands that entered Vietnam for the first time in 2025 show the market's appeal spreading beyond F&B and general retail.

American running shoe brand Hoka opened its first Vietnam store at Saigon Centre in April. Golf lifestyle brand Malbon launched a two-story, 250-square-meter flagship on Dong Khoi Street in HCMC in December, with plans to expand to Hanoi, Da Nang, and Phu Quoc within 12 to 24 months. Malaysia's Oh!Some, a multi-category retail chain, debuted at Crescent Mall in April. Chinese smart home brand Dreame opened a flagship experience store at Landmark 81.

The convenience store map also shifted. After entering HCMC in 2017, 7-Eleven finally expanded north to Hanoi in June 2025, choosing a location on Lo Su Street near Hoan Kiem Lake. South Korea's GS25 reached 400 stores by November, targeting 700 by 2027. Starbucks had about 140 locations by year-end, hitting its 150th store on New Year's Day 2026. Compare that to Mixue's 1,300-plus outlets — two very different strategies in the same market.

▍ Not All Good News: Closures, Contraction, and Political Risk

The market grew, but competition also accelerated the shakeout.

More than 50,000 F&B outlets shut down in the first half of 2025. Total F&B locations nationwide dropped to about 300,000, down 7.1% year-on-year. Rising ingredient costs, higher labor expenses, and softening consumer demand squeezed small operators without scale advantages.

Mixue's contraction has already been noted — its store count pulled back from peak levels, and the company acknowledged Vietnam and Indonesia as its biggest adjustment markets. Chagee's nine-dash line incident highlighted a different kind of risk: political sensitivity. With China and Vietnam fundamentally at odds over South China Sea sovereignty, any slip involving maps, flags, or territorial markers can instantly escalate from a business issue to a diplomatic one.

Getting into Vietnam isn't the hard part. Staying is. Market consultants observe that successful foreign brands typically localize 20% to 30% of their products within 18 months of entry — adapting packaging (smaller portions), flavors (less sweet, more umami), and marketing (livestream selling with local KOLs).

▍ The Retail Battle Is Just Getting Started

Looking back at 2025, foreign brands in Vietnam moved from testing the waters to competing at scale.

Jollibee named Vietnam its best-performing market globally, with Q2 sales up 35%. Its Highlands Coffee chain had 928 stores by Q3, the largest coffee chain in the country. Total chain coffee shops in Vietnam grew from 816 in 2019 to 2,067 in 2025 — a 2.5x increase in six years.

The battlefield in 2026 will only get more crowded. UNIQLO and MUJI are both targeting Da Nang. AEON and Central Retail are planting shopping centers in second- and third-tier cities. Chinese brands will be more cautious after the nine-dash line fallout, but they won't stop coming.

Making money in Vietnam has never been easy. But no brand can afford to sit this one out.

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