The new decision that mobile phones can be imported through three seaports in HCM City, Da Nang and Hai Phong has caused headaches for mobile phone distributors.

Time consuming procedures may lead to short supply

Doan Thanh Nhan, senior executive of Viettel Trade Import-Export Company, said the company now does not have enough products to provide to the market. Meanwhile, she fears that the supply would become even shorter with the new regulation which does not allow mobile phones to go through airports.

According to Nhan, to date, Viettel has been importing mobile phones mostly by air with simple procedures which allows putting the import products on sale on the market immediately. In general, it took only two seeks to place orders and get deliveries in Vietnam.

“However, things will be different from June 1, when mobile phones can go through three sea ports only,” Nhan said. “It will take more money to carry goods by sea than by air, especially Nokia or iPhone products”.

Many other mobile phone distributors have also complained that the new regulations set up by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which requires importers to show different kinds of documents, and will make importers spend more time to follow procedures. Meanwhile, mobile phones – high-tech products – always have short life expectancy periods of several months.

According to Pham Ngoc Tu, Head of the Business Division of VinaPhone, after hearing the new regulations, VinaPhone has to contact Apple to discuss the changes relating to the time of import.

Tu said that previously, it took VinaPhone only one week for an order. However, the time will be about one month in the time to come, as products have to go to Vietnam by sea. Therefore, VinaPhone will have to set up longer term business plans. It is expected that the number of products it imports each time would be four times higher than previously.

However, what most worries Tu is that the costs for importing goods will be higher. Previously, VinaPhone only had to spend one million dollars per week for an order, while the figure may soar to four million dollars.

The rise of the products carried across borders

When issuing the new decision, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that it aims to protect the benefits of consumers and fight against counterfeit and low quality products, and prevent trade frauds.

However, the new decision will not cover the products to be carried out across the borders (these products are not imported to Vietnam by trade companies through official channels, but they are simply carried to Vietnam across the borders by travelers or people to Vietnam). Therefore, analysts believe that this kind of products will be the big choice for consumers, once the new regulation is applied.

The analysts say that the mobile phones to be imported through official channels will be less competitive in comparison with the products to be carried across the borders, because they will be slower to appear on the market, even though they are cheaper.

Le Hoang Hai, Deputy Marketing Director of FPT Mobile, which is distributing mobile phones of many manufacturers such as Nokia, HTC and Samsung, said FPT Mobile has never imported products by sea, and the company still cannot calculate how high the import expenses will be if importing products by sea. However, the biggest headache for him is that the import products would be “out of fashion”.

Hai said, as for iPhone products, every model only can live for several months before they come out of fashion. Therefore, it is very likely that the import products would become backward when they spend months to travel by sea before arriving in Vietnam.

Source: TBKTVN