Wave of Phuc Tea, Three O'Clock and a series of Vietnamese brands going abroad

(Dan Tri) - Trung Nguyen Legend, Phuc Tea, Three O'Clock... and many other Vietnamese brands have been and are "inviting each other" to go abroad. What is this wave like?

While Vietnamese consumers are excited to be able to enjoy many famous F&B flavors or world-class consumer products, the wave of domestic businesses "bringing their bells to foreign lands" is also very popular.

Vietnamese businesses "invite each other to go abroad"

Earlier this year, Teatime Joint Stock Company - the operator of the Three O'Clock coffee chain - signed an exclusive contract with FranGlobal to develop a secondary franchise system in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, with a commitment to open at least 100 branches within 10 years.

Three O'clock Coffee is a new brand of a TikToker, quickly welcomed by young people in Ho Chi Minh City with the feature of being open 24 hours. During the day, the shop is a place to date, chat, and meet friends, but at night it becomes an ideal place for young people "running deadlines".

Before this brand, many Vietnamese coffee brands also "brought their bells to strike foreign lands" such as Trung Nguyen Legend, Cong coffee... In December 2022, the Trung Nguyen Legend Coffee World model opened its first space in the world in the downtown area of ​​Shanghai, China, then moved to the US market.

Also in China, Chi Pu opened a Pho La Ganh shop, selling bowls of pho that are introduced as authentic Northern flavors, priced at around 300,000 VND/bowl. Or the milk tea brand Phuc Tea has successfully franchised 2 HappiTea stores (the international name of Phuc Tea) in the Philippines. Information from Go Global said that Phuc Tea has "closed" the contract and is about to be present in India.

In 2023, a young Vietnamese brand, Cong Caphe, opened its first store in Toronto (Canada), which is also the third international market for this coffee chain. This chain also has dozens of stores in Korea and many countries outside of Vietnam.

In the Philippines, the Pho'S brand opened its first franchise store last year. Not only F&B, the first Vietnamese mother and baby care brand - Care with love (CWL) - is known to be promoting franchising in the Philippines and Dubai (UAE).

The global franchising industry is expected to reach over $4 billion by 2027 (Photo: Technavio Report).

In February this year, Care with love (CWL) went abroad for the first time to Cambodia. Talking about the reason for international franchising at this time, founder Tran Thao Vi said that the domestic economy is facing many challenges such as slow growth, declining purchasing power, high operating costs, and fierce competition in many fields. Expanding to international markets is becoming an inevitable strategy for Vietnamese businesses to diversify revenue sources, reduce the risk of dependence on the domestic market, and take advantage of growth opportunities in countries with high demand.

Mobile World Investment Joint Stock Company, realizing that the domestic market was saturated and competition was increasingly fierce, copied its business model abroad, the EraBlue chain in Indonesia. Era has been profitable at the corporate level since the third quarter of 2024, with an average revenue of 2.8 billion VND per store.

Expert: In the next 3 years, there will be a series of Vietnamese brands going abroad in a spectacular way.

Sharing with Dan Tri newspaper reporters about the wave of "bringing bells to strike foreign lands", Ms. Nguyen Phi Van, a franchise expert and President of the Southeast Asia Angel Investment Network, said that anyone doing business understands that the market is the world, especially when physical boundaries are increasingly blurring with the development of online connections. Therefore, it is natural that Vietnamese businesses should reach out to the world, and it is necessary to do so if they want to survive and compete with regional and international brands.

According to Ms. Van, if in the past, businesses had awareness but struggled to know how to develop the world market, recently there have been a number of successful programs or examples to demonstrate and guide Vietnamese brands.

“I am sure that in the next 3 years, we will witness many spectacular deals, as Vietnamese brands continue to conquer large, demanding, potential markets in the world,” Ms. Nguyen Phi Van emphasized.

Franchise expert Nguyen Phi Van (Photo: Facebook character).

She also specifically recommended that businesses “the more they expand into the world market, the more they must remain truly local.” Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises have always lacked everything, and have absolutely no competitive advantage in high technology, top quality, or excellent service like businesses in developed countries. Therefore, the biggest advantage is still local culture and stories.

No matter how developed other countries are, they cannot understand and tell the story of their native culture as authentically and interestingly as Vietnam. That is the outstanding competitive advantage.

For example, Ms. Nguyen Phi Van gave an example: for Phuc Tea, the difference that the brand brings is the flavors, the creative blends that are very local in each product, which makes the brand completely different from Taiwanese or Chinese milk tea. As for Three O'clock, thanks to the most Vietnamese coffee flavors such as iced milk coffee, coconut coffee, egg coffee, etc.

On the other hand, Vietnamese enterprises also need to improve many things, according to experts, "it can take 3 days and 3 nights to list them all". Because, small and medium enterprises in Vietnam have a very family-based and spontaneous starting point, with absolutely no foundation for professional management and operation.

Among them, the three most important things that need to be improved, according to Ms. Nguyen Phi Van, are the professionalism of the founder and team, the professionalism in the operational management platform, and the professionalism of the model and brand.

Because, to be able to “go global”, the business owner must be the one to change his/her mindset, learn and practice international skills, and at the same time find the right core personnel or develop existing personnel into personnel capable of working internationally. In addition, the business needs to learn how and go through the process of packaging a professional model and professional operational management before being able to transfer this model to international partners.

According to F&B businesses, Vietnamese cuisine is favored by consumers in many countries around the world. This is a favorable condition and also a great opportunity for Vietnamese F&B chains to "go abroad". Through franchising, Vietnamese brands, according to experts, will easily expand their markets faster and be able to access large, potential markets.

According to experts, franchising is one of the most effective forms of international market development, a form that can export brands and business models that can be applied in any industry.

In countries with developed franchise industries such as the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, or in Asia such as Korea, China, Philippines, Malaysia..., the industry's contribution to the national GDP can range from 3-10%. Therefore, franchising is highly valued by governments for its contribution to the national economy and its ability to create jobs for the people.

According to market research firm Technavio, the global franchising industry is estimated to be worth $2.9 billion by 2023, with a CAGR of 10.8% and will reach a value of $4.4 billion by 2027.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/kinh-doanh/lan-song-phuc-tea-three-oclock-va-loat-thuong-hieu-viet-ra-nuoc-ngoai-20250911200343485.htm