As of 2023, Vietnam’s population has surpassed 100 million, with a fertility rate of approximately 1.96 children per woman, leading to the birth of over 1.3 million babies annually. Known for its high proportion of households with children in Southeast Asia, Vietnam has experienced an increase in dual-income families and educational levels, contributing to a willingness to invest in childcare and infant products. The Vietnamese market for these products, worth about 13 trillion won, is growing particularly due to the increasing middle-income class and a rising preference for Korean children’s products.

In response to the severe low birthrate phenomenon, Korean children’s product companies have been entering the Vietnamese market. Since 2020, Beberia has established a wholly-owned local subsidiary to provide community-centered parenting information and operate a commerce platform based on this data.

Leveraging a vast network developed over 17 years of living in Vietnam, Noa Lee founded Beberia to address inaccuracies and information imbalances in traditional parenting advice. Recognizing the limitations of informal channels, Beberia launched an open market in 2023 to provide a reliable source of information and products. The platform enhances the accuracy of parenting information through a mom leaders group and ensures product authenticity with a thorough certification system for production, import customs, and certificate review.

Beberia has gained a competitive edge through the collaboration between its Vietnamese and Korean teams. They have quickly adapted popular Korean products such as Babyface and tntn moms to the Vietnamese market. Beberia is currently planning to develop Vietnam-specific products by analyzing external and internal data, targeting the Vietnamese preference for Korean products.

In a 2022 interview with WowTale, Beberia was already well-established locally, being used by 70% of Vietnamese mothers, and had seen notable growth over two years. This success is attributed to the collaboration between the seasoned Korean team and the culturally insightful Vietnamese team.

Expanding beyond B2B, Beberia is moving into the B2C sector. In 2024, Babyface achieved 20,000 cumulative sales, and Beberia is driving sales growth by managing B2B distributions of maternity and childbirth gifts for employees in Vietnam. Moreover, Beberia is solidifying its position in the B2C market through partnerships with influencers.

Beberia also plans to introduce solutions to support Korean children’s business operators entering the Vietnamese market, as well as launch private label products. Through various expansion strategies, Beberia aims to perform targeted marketing that aligns with Vietnamese market trends and consumer demands, further strengthening its position in the local children’s market. With support from the Youth Overseas Expansion Support Program of the Incheon Center for Creative Economy & Innovation, Beberia is expanding its business in Vietnam and preparing to raise pre-Series A funding in 2025.

Noa Lee, the CEO of Beberia, stated, “I understand that children’s business operators in Korea are facing significant challenges due to the low birth rate and fierce competition. Beberia is assisting these companies to localize in Vietnam. Production is managed by Korean manufacturers, and Beberia provides information, collaborating to produce localized private label products.”

He added, “In addition to the Beberia app platform and distribution services, we are also closely cooperating with local companies and can host children’s exhibitions in Vietnam. We collect and analyze core data, which we believe will enable us to attract investment under favorable conditions if we launch private label products and achieve good results based on this infrastructure and network.”

What problem is Beberia trying to solve? 

In Vietnam, there is still a lot of inaccurate information about pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare. Beberia aims to provide Vietnamese mothers with accurate information and a communication space that is easy and quick to use, while also offering genuine children’s products. Previously, Vietnamese mothers shared childcare information on Facebook groups and purchased children’s products on Shopee. Both platforms were dominated by operators distributing Chinese knockoffs or inferior Vietnamese products, leading to difficulties in information search and exposure to exaggerated/false advertising. Since 2021, Beberia has focused on providing accurate information and fostering an active, clean community. In 2023, based on trust and traffic, it opened an open market service.

How is Beberia solving this problem? 

Beberia operates a mom leaders group to provide precisely processed information and runs a community and commerce operation that allows mothers to comfortably use and trust the products by introducing certification processes such as production, import customs, and mandatory certificate checks for business operators on the open market.

Have there been many competitors since 2022? 

What is our core competitiveness compared to them? Although we were the latest entrant by 2023, we now have the most active users. Since 2023, Korean parenting platform services have entered Vietnam, but Beberia maintains its industry-leading position. Our experienced Korean team and the Vietnamese team, which accurately understands the local market, effectively operate our business processes to create and stabilize new services in the market. For example, Babyface and tntn moms, highly popular services and products among Korean expectant mothers, have been well-positioned for rapid growth due to well-established market entry strategies and exploration of market potential in Vietnam.

Have there been any expanded or developed services or products? 

This year, corporate services launched, such as maternity and childbirth gifts for employees distributed B2B, and B2C distribution through influencer moms, are rapidly increasing in sales. We are also preparing to provide solutions and PB products for Korean children’s business operators to export to Vietnam, analyzing internal and external commerce and advertising data, and planning to provide targeted marketing to our supply partners when our customers need these products or services.

How much has the market size or customer base expanded? 

We are attracting 15,000 to 20,000 new users monthly and have 300,000 monthly active users. We collect information on the age group of new users, whether they have children, and the age of their children, and with their consent, we collect and process information obtained at the time of product or service purchase to utilize it for marketing efficiency and sales increase.

According to analyses by institutions like Euromonitor and KOTRA, the Vietnamese children’s market is about the same size as South Korea’s at 13 trillion won. However, with 1.5 million newborns annually in Vietnam—five times more than in Korea—the per capita spending in Vietnam is about 20% of that in Korea. Yet, many customers have been actively consuming Korean culture since middle school, and the growth of Korean products is being reflected in the market, with the rapid increase in middle-income earners directly influencing purchasing power.

What achievements have we made from 2022 to now? 

As mentioned, Babyface and tntn moms have been successfully established in the market, and the Beberia children’s exhibition we host has also been successfully completed. We plan to develop projects to explore the Vietnamese market with competitive Korean children’s goods operators.

Three reasons why Beberia needs investment! 

First, I have been living in Vietnam for 16 years, allowing for accurate analysis based on my Korean experience, and my team is deploying a business method focused on providing new services and products. 

Second, Beberia has grown through collaborations with over 300 mom influencers. Unlike live commerce in Korea, the rapid growth of live commerce in China and Vietnam started from information disparity and distrust in operators, but our team has the know-how to expand services and increase sales by leveraging influencers’ reputations. 

Third, through the distribution of Babyface and tntn moms, we are gaining a deeper understanding of the Vietnamese children’s market. Based on comprehensive data, we are the company most likely to create national items in the fields of diapers, wet wipes, sanitary products, and educational materials.

What efforts are we making for overseas expansion, and what results have we achieved? 

To become the top choice platform for Vietnamese mothers, we continue activities such as service optimization, providing guaranteed genuine imported children’s products at reasonable prices, Beberia exhibitions, and collaborations with mom influencers. Through these activities, we provide accurate information quickly and easily to Vietnamese mothers and strive to become a platform for distributing children’s products and services based on the trust built.

How has ‘Youth Overseas Expansion Support Program’ helped us? 

While conducting our business, there have been instances where we thought and decided within existing frameworks, but participating in programs with experts from various fields in Korea and Vietnam has been very helpful. So far, discussions have been held with two mentors covering overall business and details, and two more mentors will be assigned to complete mentoring on the overall business. Even after the program ends, we plan to actively engage through continuous communication with the mentors to keep them informed of our status and solve problems.