A manufacturer's first Vietnam plan almost always has one line for "the south". The three regions inside that line behave like three countries.
The South East
Ho Chi Minh City and the provinces around it hold the largest hospital network in the country and the densest pharmacy trade. It is the region where a specialist-led product gets its reputation, where the teaching hospitals sit, and where a launch either works or is quietly abandoned.
It is also the region every competitor is already in. Being present in Ho Chi Minh City is table stakes; it is not a distribution strategy.
The Central Coast
From Đà Nẵng south through the coastal cities and up into the highlands, the buying is done by provincial hospitals. The decisions are more concentrated — fewer institutions, larger individual orders — and the relationships are longer-lived. A product that has been in a provincial formulary for three years is difficult to displace, in either direction.
The distances matter. A field team covering Đà Nẵng, Nha Trang and Buôn Ma Thuột is not covering one city with three districts.
The Mekong Delta
Thirteen provinces, no dominant city, and a trade that moves along rivers as much as roads. Cần Thơ is the largest centre and it is not large enough to serve as a single hub the way Ho Chi Minh City does for the South East.
This is where distribution plans written in a head office abroad fall over. The delta is not "the south, further out" — it is a different logistics problem, and a partner who serves it from one warehouse in Ho Chi Minh City is serving the parts of it that are convenient.
What to ask a prospective partner
Not "do you cover the south". Ask which provinces they were in last quarter, which channel they sold through in each, and what the delta looked like separately from the rest. A partner who reports the three regions as one number is either not measuring them separately or would rather you did not look.
