eDiGi joins group of authorised Apple dealers

Th once-iconic iCenter store chain had to close over poor business results

Aiming to enhance the coverage of Apple stores in Vietnam, US-based Apple Inc., despite repeated failures in maintaining its branded stores in the country, has been seeking partners to develop this model, and one of the largest local branded-good distributor Imex Pan Pacific Group (IPPG) has become the latest partner in the strategy.

IPPG on September 10 launched its first eDiGi store by Apple's standards of the Apple Premium Reseller (APR) and Apple Service Provider (ASP) in Ho Chi Minh City. According to IPPG’s chairman Johnathan Hanh Nguyen, the store chain targets local consumers using parallel goods, which account for 40 per cent of Apple products circulating in the market.

However, prompting customers to shift towards buying authorised products will be tough for eDiGi as there is little difference between parallel imports and authorised goods—if anything, the field is slightly lopsided towards parallel goods. Specifically, in addition to the more reasonable price, parallel import goods have the same guarantees as authorised goods. Therefore, the majority of Vietnamese people tend to choose buying parallel import goods to save money.

Due to the huge interest in parallel imports as well as difficulties in finding an appropriate location, prior to eDiGi, many similar store chains, such as iCenter, F-studio, and Future World, failed and currently there are only a handful of stores across the country which have been maintained by the commitments of Apple and its partners.

In light of previous failures, eDiGi's chances of success are rather slim. However, with plenty of customers from IPPG’s branded goods and other businesses, along with strong financial resources, IPPG has many advantages that could bring success for the eDiGi store chain, even when it comes to competition against firms like FPT Group and Mobile World.