Three growth engines help Masan become consumer technology platform

“Our vision remains unchanged, and now we have in hand the foundation to realize this vision,” Danny Le, CEO of Masan Group, said at the event 'Winning with AI, Data Science, and Machine Learning,' held on November 27 with participation of many of the world's leading technology investment funds.

Masan Group's vision is to build a seamless offline-to-online platform to serve the needs of 100 million Vietnamese consumers, including financial products and services.

Masan's strategic growth engines are based on three main pillars: network growth, member growth, and wallet share growth. These three growth engines are empowered by a national fulfilment and logistics platform to deliver goods to consumers anywhere and anytime in the most timely and cost-efficient manner.

AI and technology are the foundation to make Masan's retail network operations smarter and more automated at scale.

Member growth

In January 2023, Masan put in place the WIN Membership programme across over 3,600 WinMart/WinMart+ supermarkets and stores nationally. After 10 months of launch, the WIN Membership programme reached 7.2 million members, playing an important role in Masan's digital transformation strategy as a platform to connect the company and consumers.

Masan's leaders aim to scale up WIN membership at both offline and online networks to 30–50 million WIN members by 2025.

The WIN membership programme allows Masan to establish a direct connection with its members, whether they are at the store or not. Besides this, customer acquisition costs are much lower than on other platforms in the market.

This is the essence of Masan's online-to-offline model: digitising to serve consumers at offline locations with lower customer acquisition costs and no additional promotional costs. The WIN membership programme is a win-win initiative. While consumers receive more value for their basic daily needs, the company also receives valuable information to build and optimize products and services to meet the desires of each customer.

In addition, Masan Group also developed the WIN AI application installed in the store's “Smart POS” system. The system allows cashiers to become "customer servants," providing appropriate and personalized advice to each customer to enhance their shopping experience.

According to Masan's leaders, WIN AI will contribute to changing the company's operating model from supply oriented to demand oriented, helping to reduce hidden costs by at least 10 per cent.

Wallet share growth

In every field of business, gaining more market share proves that the business holds a great competitive advantage in the market. However, to achieve this goal, the business needs to build comprehensive business and marketing strategies. In particular, one of the methods employed by large corporations is to build a variety of products and services throughout the customer value chain. As for Masan, the company has been expanding its market share of consumer spending by 80 per cent with a strategy of serving needs ranging from basic daily needs to financial products and services.

For daily needs (accounting for 25 per cent of the market share of spending) such as dining and shopping, Masan serves consumers with market-leading brands such as Chin-su, Omachi, and MEATdeli. The company continuously improves products to increase the user experience. Masan has recently introduced Omachi self-boiling beef and crab hotpot. The company has also joined hands with Pho Thin Bo Ho, a nearly 70-year-old heirloom pho restaurant, to develop a new instant product line called Pho Story. Both products receive positive responses from consumers.

In addition, Masan's ecosystem also serves consumer lifestyle needs (accounting for 30 per cent of spending), such as experiencing different types of tea and coffee or simply owning a high-speed SIM card.

Phuc Long Heritage and Wintel are two of the strategic cards for Masan to gain a market share of young people's wallets. Specifically, thanks to the high-speed "Unlimited Data" package and digital offerings, Wintel is achieving rapid growth of new subscribers, up to 136 per cent per month in the second and third quarters, showing its positive response from young people.

Meanwhile, Masan is planning to expand financial products and services, which accounts for the remaining 25 per cent out of the total 80 per cent of the wallet share. Masan has two member companies that help realise this goal: Trusting Social and Techcombank.

In early 2022, Masan announced the acquisition of a 25 per cent stake in the Vietnamese fintech and AI startup Trusting Social, which specialises in issuing credit cards similar to banks. This deal facilitates Masan's provision of financial solutions to unbanked consumers through integration into the WIN membership programme.

Network growth

Masan's network stretches from offline to online, with 3,600 points of sale national belonging to the WinCommerce chain or all websites belonging to the ecosystem, such as winmart.vn, wintel.vn, and techcombank.com.vn. It means consumers can buy and experience products and services anywhere across Vietnam.

To expand the network and increase customer benefits, Masan also plans to cooperate with many renowned domestic and foreign partners. For example, Masan expects to form a tie-up with Lazada in the near future. With this tie-up, consumers can enjoy an ofline-to-online shopping experience such as daily consumables from WinCommerce, as well as consumer electronics, and fashion and beauty products from Lazada.

All three growth engines will be empowered by Masan's fulfilment and logistics services, The Supra, and AI and ML technology. The application of AI and ML helps Masan optimise costs and improve the operational efficiency of consumer businesses, such as by choosing retail store locations, building supply and demand plans, product catalogues, sales, and marketing.

In the first nine months of 2023, Masan still achieved positive business performance despite the challenging macro environment. Masan's net reached VND57.47 billion ($2.37 billion) in the given period, an increase of 3.5 per cent compared to $2.29 billion in the first nine months of 2022. These positive results clearly demonstrate the growth engines of Masan's consumer-tech platform.

Masan's net revenue reaches $2.34 billion Masan Group Corporation (HSX:MSN), released its unaudited management accounts for the first nine months of 2023 on October 30.

Masan set for strong finish to 2023 Many economic experts believe that interest rates will continue to decrease from now until the end of the year, lending rates in particular. A series of fiscal policies, such as VAT reductions and salary increases, are also expected to stimulate domestic consumption. Vietnam's largest retail consumer outfit, Masan Group, is set to benefit significantly from these policies.

Masan Group's M&A strategy paying off Masan Group's active engagements in mergers and acquisitions has helped it gain entry into new sectors in recent years and complete its retail consumer ecosystem.