DMX bet Indonesia wants a second Dien May Xanh, in half the time

Vietnam's largest consumer electronics retailer — 3,000+ stores across Dien May Xanh, The Gioi Di Dong and TopZone — holding 55% of the domestic market.

A proven electronics-retail playbook can be transplanted to Indonesia — 'five to seven years behind Vietnam' — and reach profitability in half the time it took at home.

DMX grew from a 2010 chain into 55% of Vietnam's consumer electronics market under Mobile World Investment. Its first international try, Cambodia in 2017, ended in exit — a lesson that pointed instead at Indonesia: nearly 300 million people, three times Vietnam's size, still dominated by mom-and-pop electronics stores.

EraBlue, the 2022 joint venture with Erajaya, turned its first profit in 2025 — about US$2 million on 3.7 trillion dong of revenue, a 1.3% net margin against DMX Vietnam's 5.7%. The targets: 1,000 Indonesian outlets by 2030, US$800 million of revenue and US$30 million of profit, which CEO Doan Van Hieu Em called 'conservative', with a potential Indonesian listing between 2027 and 2030 at an industry P/E of about 25 times.

The market thesis is structural: a fragmented, mom-and-pop-dominated electronics trade of 300 million people, at the development stage Vietnam was half a decade ago.

The JV design quarantines the classic expansion failure — foreigners misreading local law and finance — by buying that knowledge from a partner who has it.

The willingness to run 1.3% net margins against 5.7% at home shows the plan prices market share over near-term profit, deliberately.

The Cambodian failure did its job: five years and 50 stores bought the lesson that market size, not proximity, decides whether the playbook transfers.

A first failed expansion can be the cheapest consulting you ever buy: Cambodia taught DMX which market shape actually fits its playbook.

EraBlue was profitable for the first time in 2025, and DMX was simultaneously listing itself in Ho Chi Minh City — a 14.4 trillion dong IPO at about US$3.9 billion post-IPO valuation, planned for August 2026, intended to 'vindicate' a business the market had called saturated. At home the company had closed 400+ stores in 2023–24 and pivoted 'from quantity to quality', pushing consumer financing, lifetime maintenance and a super-app strategy.