KFC, Pizza Hut curry top favor on Vietnam social media

KFC and Pizza Hut were the most popular food & beverage businesses on social media in Vietnam in October, according to a report by local consulting firm Reputa.

Utilizing Big Data to collect and process data from 64 million Facebook users, 500,000 YouTube channels, and over 3,000 media agencies in the country, Reputa has compiled a report based on 773,861 entries in four ratings: positive comments; portion of comments of the business in the sector; total interactions (likes, shares, comments) in the sector; and spread of information in the sector.

KFC topped the market in October, the fourth month in a row, with a total score of 137.63, nearly double second placed Pizza Hut with a score of 70.89.

Reputa attributes KFC’s high score to its campaign of ordering KFC via Gojek, a strong ride-hailing service and food courier in the country. The fast food chain has maintained its first rank for four months, after coming second to Highlands Coffee, a popular café franchise, in June.

Two other foreign businesses in the October list were Koi Café and Gong Cha, two milk tea chains.

Pizza Hut rose to the second place after jumping 19 positions in October, with one notable achievement of an Asian-European fusion dish "pizza banh xeo tom nhay" - pizza with flying shrimp savory crepe), which attracted 6,242 interactions.

The Coffee House, a famous cafe chain, took October’s third rank though its total score fell 43% in a month. Its key event in October was the debut of "CloudTea" products, featuring 23,900 social media interactions.

In beverages, milk tea and tea were the two most popular topics on social media last month, accounting for 43.08% and 28.28% of discussions, respectively, followed by juice, coffee, and tea.

Vietnam ranks third among six countries that spend most money on milk tea/bubble tea and similar ‘new tea’ drinks in Southeast Asia, at $362 million a year, according to Singapore consulting firm Momentum Works and payment startup Qlub.

Pie was the most discussed topic for food in October with 20.53%, followed by noodles and glass noodles with 16.06%, chicken and duck with 13.01%, vermicelli and pho (noodle soup) with 10.94%.

The rapid growth of food & beverage companies in the last months of 2022 was a hot topic in the press last month. Popular news articles included Trung Nguyen Legend opening ten cafés in a day, Golden Gate introducing its canned beer, Ong Bau (Boss) cafe chain opening up stores, and Regal Legend urban area attracting 300 food & beverage firms.