Customers shop at a Masan mini mall, point of life outlet. — Photo courtesy of the company

HCM CITY — Transforming WinMart+ (formerly VinMart+) and WinMart stores into point of life (POL) locations is expected to increase revenues/sq.m/month as demonstrated by the initial success with the mini-mall concept and growing online sales.

Both initiatives are expected to reduce time required to breakeven at new WMP and WMT locations, according to Masan leaders.

After the early success of Phúc Long Kiosks in WCM locations, which helped to deliver 16 per cent growth in average bills per day, Masan piloted a mini-mall POL concept, combining WinMart+ (grocery), Phúc Long Kiosk (coffee and tea), Phano pharmacy, and Techcombank transaction point into an integrated offering.

Given the initial success of the mini-mall concept, management plans to scale up the concept to cover most of its retail network.

Masan added another piece to its POL puzzle with the acquisition of Mobicast Joint Stock Company that operates under the brand Reddi, a startup mobile virtual network operator.

This is the foundation to digitise Masan’s predominantly offline platform and build a unified off-to-online (O2O) products and services solution for its “Point of Life” consumer ecosystem.

By unifying its consumer base via Reddi, Masan has the capability to create a sticky loyalty platform to deliver more value to its consumers in the only consumer ecosystem that spans grocery, financial and digital life, which together account for 80 per cent of consumer spending in Việt Nam.

Due to the severe COVID-related lockdowns in Q3, online sales were negatively affected. Management is aiming to ramp up this channel early next year as it is a key strategic priority.

Management is building a dark store concept for its supermarket format to improve handling of online orders, reduce the time required to fulfil orders and minimise operational errors.

This concept is expected to further improve the profitability of the supermarket segment, as online orders will be serviced by dedicated staff and an optimised SKU (stock keeping unit) portfolio.

Masan chairman Dr Nguyễn Đăng Quang said: “I am proud of how we have responded during the height of the pandemic, but it is time to create the future for a new normal.

“Consumers are now prioritising quality of life which will accelerate modernisation and innovation in Việt Nam’s consumer value chain, from products to services.

“We are positioned for the new normal with the successful integration of our FMCG-retail platform. The next phase will be to scale up our ‘Point of Life’ concept, a modern mini mall that combines the most trusted and innovative brands and services to offer consumers most of their daily essentials offline and online. This will enable us to create a unique loyalty platform and economies of scale to ensure consumers will pay less for their daily essentials." 

Business results

The CrownX (TCX), Masan’s integrated consumer-retail platform that consolidates WinCommerce (formerly known as VinCommerce) and Masan Consumer Holdings, delivered earnings before  interest,  taxes,  depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) of VNĐ4.77 trillion (US$209.9 million) in the first nine months, a 185.8 per cent rise year-on-year, Masan’s financial statement for the quarter shows.

WCM delivered positive net profit after tax and post minority interest (NPAT Post-MI) for the first time, seven quarters after Masan acquired it.

The NPAT Post-MI was VNĐ137 billion ($6.03 million), driven by 21.2 per cent year-on-year growth in net revenues and the EBITDA margin reaching positive 5.5 per cent versus negative 3 per cent during the same quarter last year.

The momentum was owed to improved total commercial margin after negotiating with suppliers, optimisation of store operating costs and logistics initiatives.

MCH’s top- and bottom-line grew by 14.3 per cent and 28.7 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months, and 18.6 per cent and 38.2 per cent in Q3.

MSN’s consolidated net revenues reached VNĐ64.8 trillion in the first nine months of the year, a year-on-year growth of 16.5 per cent, driven by strong top-line growth across nearly all businesses.

MSN achieved 70.4 per cent of the lower end of its net revenue target of VNĐ92 trillion for fiscal year 2021 in the first nine months. In terms of NPAT Post-MI, MSN delivered VNĐ2.13 trillion, or 85 per cent of the target of VNĐ2.5 trillion.

The company is confident of delivering fiscal year 2021 net revenue and NPAT Post-MI results within the range communicated at its AGM. — VNS