Sabeco: Vietnam's state-owned beer champion lost its crown to Heineken

Sabeco (Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp) was Vietnam's dominant brewer, with a 42% share of the country's beer market when the state sold its majority stake to Thailand's ThaiBev in 2017. Its Bia Saigon and 333 lagers were the default choice of Vietnamese drinkers, and the brand was so strong that for decades no foreign brewer seriously challenged it at scale.

Heineken Vietnam, by contrast, spent the same years building a premium portfolio around Heineken, Tiger and Larue, and outspent Sabeco on marketing. Between 2018 and 2023, Sabeco's share slipped from 42% to about 34% while Heineken rose to 43% — the first time a foreign brewer passed the state champion. Premium beer's share of consumption grew from 29.8% to 33.7% in the same period, and Sabeco was late to that shift.

Sabeco's marketing spending as a share of revenue nearly tripled between 2018 and 2023, yet it kept losing ground. Its strategy leaned on price increases and new products that were mostly repackaged versions of existing lines. In 2022 Heineken Vietnam alone earned about 10,000 billion VND (roughly $400M) in after-tax profit — more than Sabeco (5,500 billion VND), Habeco and every other brewer in Vietnam combined.

The turning point came in 2023, when Sabeco's operating profit fell 58% in a single year even as volumes held. In the fourth quarter of 2024 it spent more than 1,000 billion VND on advertising and promotion — a record — and still saw after-tax profit fall to about 990 billion VND on record revenue. As Heineken's Vietnam general director Lester Tan put it: "no beer company currently holds an unshakable number-one position in Vietnam. Market share changes constantly from month to month and faces intense competition from international brands."