The Vietnam infant formula and baby food market: size, imports and the 24-month rule

How big is the market? Three figures that measure different things

Vietnam publishes no official figure for infant formula sales. Each figure in circulation measures a different slice, and a sizing that mixes them is wrong before it starts.

The first is not a formula figure at all: it includes the skim milk powder a dairy plant turns into yogurt. The second is the closest thing to a hard number for imported formula, the value of finished cans at the border, before duty and margins. The third is retail value, but only online, and it mixes formula with cereals and purées. At a round VND 26,000 to the dollar it is about USD 157 million for six months. The fourth is a model whose inputs cannot be checked.

Two things hold across all of them. Value grows faster than volume: on the marketplaces, sales grew 48% while units grew 24%. And the number of babies is not growing. The General Statistics Office puts the 2025 crude birth rate at 13.7 per thousand in a population of 102.3 million, roughly 1.4 million births by our arithmetic, and fertility at 1.93 children per woman, below replacement. A formula plan for Vietnam is a plan to win a share of a stable number of children at a higher spend per child.

Most formula on the shelf crossed a border

Vietnam reports its imports of retail-packed infant preparations to the UN, but not yet for 2024 or later, and there is no 2020 record. The last two rows come from what partner countries say they shipped to Vietnam, recorded at their own values, so compare them with the others only roughly.

Three points matter for an entry plan.

• Fewer kilograms, higher prices. Net weight fell by about 30% between 2021 and 2023, while the value per kilogram rose from USD 7.85 to USD 9.11. The market is moving up the price ladder, not growing in tonnes.
• Origin is the plant, not the brand. Trade data records where the can was made, so these figures say where Vietnam’s supply is made, not which brands sell.
• The records disagree at the edges. In 2023 Vietnam booked USD 26.9 million of these products from Thailand, while Thailand reported no such exports to Vietnam. Read origin shares as an order of magnitude, not a ranking to the decimal.

The larger flow is in ingredients. The USDA counts USD 576 million of dairy food preparations and ingredients imported in 2025, up from USD 484 million in 2023, with the EU leading at USD 139 million, and names dairy ingredients for infant formula as the main opportunity for US exporters. Formula is also made inside Vietnam, and every locally made can is missing from the table above. The same report notes that the United States is among the few origins that pay duty on these goods, while Asian suppliers enter duty-free under trade agreements, so the supply origin is a cost decision, not only a logistics one.

Who holds the market: what the data shows and what it does not

No source we could check publishes market shares for infant formula in Vietnam. What can be checked is narrower.

• Growth online. On the four marketplaces in the first half of 2026, Metric names Bellamy’s Organic (+501%), HiPP (+330%), ColosBaby (+235%), Vinamilk (+167%) and VitaDairy (+124%) as the fastest-growing brands. By contribution to the category’s added sales, Vinamilk came first with 17% and HiPP second with 13%, which says more about size than growth from a small base.
• All milk online. A Vietnam Dairy Association bulletin of March 2025, citing Metric, put Abbott first in online milk sales for January to November 2024 with 20.81%, Vinamilk second with 7.94%, and 14 foreign brands in the top 20. It includes adult nutrition milk, so it is not a formula ranking.
• Local makers compete. Vinamilk and VitaDairy, both Vietnamese, sit among the five fastest growers, so a foreign brand is not only competing with other imports.

A share for the whole market, offline included, needs retail audit data that brands buy privately. A plan that depends on it should budget for that data or for its own store checks, not borrow a press figure whose sample cannot be seen.

Where formula is sold: marketplaces lead the measured part

Metric’s half-year figures give the clearest channel picture available, but only for the online part of the market:

Shopee produced 71% of the category’s added sales, and 79% and 83% of the growth of Vinamilk and HiPP. Metric’s explanation is that parents search, compare prices and read reviews before buying formula, and that official brand stores reassure them about counterfeits.

Offline, formula sells through specialist mother-and-baby chains, pharmacies, supermarkets and grocery stores. We found no checkable split between them, so the offline mix is something to measure in the first research step, not a number to look up.

One channel is closed by law. Under Article 12 of Decree 100/2014/ND-CP, health facilities may not sell breast-milk substitutes, apart from their own pharmacies, may not display them or branded items, and may not let company staff reach mothers. The maternity ward, where a brand first meets a family in many markets, is shut.

The 24-month line: what may be advertised

Everything in formula marketing in Vietnam turns on the age written on the label. Decree 100/2014/ND-CP defines a young child as one from birth to 24 months, and a breast-milk substitute as any formula for that age: infant formula up to 12 months, follow-up formula from 6 to 24 months, and any other milk presented as suitable for children under 24 months. Article 7.4 of the Advertising Law, as amended by Law 75/2025/QH15 from 1 January 2026, bans advertising these products outright.

The two sentences for complementary food are fixed in Vietnamese by Decree 342. The ad must open by stating that the product is complementary food, eaten alongside breast milk by children over six months, and must say that breast milk is the best food for a young child’s health and development.

Labels have their own rules. Under Article 8 of Decree 100, the label of a breast-milk substitute must carry a warning headed “CHÚ Ý” that breast milk is best, must state the age of use, and may not show babies, breastfeeding mothers or bottles, or claim to equal breast milk. For an imported can this means a Vietnamese sub-label at least, and often a pack design that cannot be carried over from home.

Where the line bites: many international ranges run from a stage 1 formula at birth to a growing-up milk past two years, under one name and one pack design. Only the last stage can be advertised. Whether an ad for it will be read as promoting the stages below, which share its name, is a question we have not seen answered in the texts, and one for counsel before the creative is made.

Beyond advertising: discounts, samples, sponsorship and creators

The rules that surprise brands most are not about ads. Article 11 of Decree 100 binds every business that makes or trades these products, and for breast-milk substitutes it rules out:

• Any promotion: free samples, vouchers, prizes, gifts, loyalty points, discounts and any other form.
• Contact with pregnant women or mothers of young children, direct or indirect, by company staff to promote the products.
• Displaying the products in health facilities, or putting their names and logos on banners, posters and other promotional materials in supermarkets, retail stores and health facilities.
• Sponsoring scholarships, research, training, conferences, seminars, concerts, competitions, films or telephone advice services that promote them.
• Feeding education that promotes them.

Health workers carry matching duties under Article 13: no recommending a breast-milk substitute for a baby under six months without a doctor’s indication, no saying formula equals breast milk, no gifts from companies, and no passing mothers’ contact details to them.

Read against a marketplace launch, that list removes most of the usual toolkit for every product under 24 months: no vouchers, no flash-sale price cuts, no gift with purchase, no points, no free trial packs. We read the duty as falling on the brand’s own official store as much as on resellers, because the decree covers every business that trades the product. Paid creators follow the same logic: a sponsored video about a formula for babies is an ad for a product that cannot be advertised, and the amended Advertising Law makes the advertiser answer for what the creators it pays publish. How that liability works is set out in our guide to Vietnam’s advertising law.

The pressure behind these rules is real. A WHO and UNICEF study of February 2022, covering 8,500 parents and pregnant women and 300 health workers in eight countries, found that 92% of the women surveyed in Viet Nam had been exposed to formula marketing, and that more than a third of the women across the study had been recommended a brand by a health worker.

Since 15 May 2026 the fines sit in Decree 90/2026/ND-CP. As reported by Tạp chí Công Thương and the Cần Thơ city legal-information portal, the levels are:

The reports do not say whether these are individual or organisation rates; in Vietnamese penalty decrees an organisation usually pays twice the individual rate. Advertising a banned product falls under the advertising fines of Decree 87/2026/ND-CP instead. The fine is rarely the larger cost: relabelled stock and withdrawn creative cost more.

A worked example: one range, two plans

All figures below are invented for illustration; only the rules are real. A European brand sells five products: stage 1 infant formula (0 to 6 months), stage 2 follow-up formula (6 to 12 months), stage 3 (1 to 2 years), a stage 4 growing-up milk (2 to 3 years), and an organic cereal from six months. Its usual launch plan splits 100 units of spending: 35 on paid social and search, 25 on vouchers and price promotions, 20 on paid creators, 10 on sampling through clinics and events, and 10 on branded store displays.

Applied product by product in Vietnam:

Now assume, again invented, that stages 1 to 3 bring 70% of sales at home, the cereal 10% and stage 4 20%. In Vietnam, 70% of expected sales sit in products on which none of the 100 units can be spent as designed. The money goes elsewhere:

• Availability. The under-24-month stages sell on being found where parents compare: the official marketplace store, specialist baby stores and pharmacies, with complete Vietnamese product information. Listing quality replaces paid placement.
• The products that may be advertised. The cereal and stage 4 carry the visible marketing, with a legal review of every creative that shows the name used on stages 1 to 3.
• Measurement by age band. Sell-out tracked for each stage, so the plan shows whether advertising stage 4 lifts the stages that cannot be advertised, instead of assuming it.

The split proves nothing. The point is that a plan copied from a market without these rules puts most of its budget into activities banned for most of the range, so a Vietnam plan is built product by product from the age on each label.

An entry order that follows the rules

• Fix the range and the age on each label first. Every later decision depends on which products sit under 24 months. A brand with a strong growing-up milk has a marketing route that a brand selling only the first stages does not.
• Register each product. Nutrition products for children up to 36 months must have their product declaration registered, not self-declared, under Article 6 of Decree 15/2018/ND-CP, and whose name the registrations are in matters when the distributor changes. The path is the one in our health supplement market piece, including the caution that the decree is under revision.
• Make the Vietnamese label. The warning, the age of use and a pack free of baby images, before the first shipment.
• Declare prices. Milk for children under six is on the list of goods whose prices must be declared under the Price Law of 2023 and Decree 85/2024/ND-CP, so the price structure is settled before listing.
• Choose the channel mix from measured data. Official marketplace store, specialist chains and pharmacies, sized from sell-out rather than from a market total.
• Write the marketing plan last, product by product. Advertising where it is allowed, availability where it is not, and a review step for every creative and creator brief.

Where the figures in this article come from

• USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, “Vietnam Dairy Market”, GAIN report VM2026-0021, Ho Chi Minh City, 10 June 2026: dairy imports by supplier (citing Trade Data Monitor), dairy ingredients and the US tariff position. We read the full report.
• UN Comtrade, imports reported by Vietnam under HS 1901.10 for 2019 and 2021 to 2023, and partner exports to Vietnam for 2024 and 2025, retrieved 30 October 2026. Values per kilogram are our arithmetic.
• Metric, half-year 2026 review of formula and baby food on four marketplaces, Brands Vietnam, 1 September 2026. Vietnam Dairy Association bulletin, 18 March 2025, citing Metric.
• General Statistics Office, population press release, 5 January 2026. The birth count is our arithmetic.
• WHO and UNICEF, “How the marketing of formula milk influences our decisions on infant feeding”, February 2022, via UN News, 22 February 2022.
• Regulation: Decree 100/2014/ND-CP, Articles 2, 6, 8, 11, 12 and 13; the Advertising Law as amended by Law 75/2025/QH15, Article 7.4; Decree 342/2025/ND-CP, Articles 3, 5 and 6; Decree 15/2018/ND-CP, Article 6; the Price Law of 2023 and Decree 85/2024/ND-CP, applied to children’s milk in Ministry of Health letter 4923/BYT-ATTP of 21 August 2024. We read Decrees 100 and 342 in full. Decree 90/2026/ND-CP fine levels as reported by Tạp chí Công Thương, 1 April 2026, and the Cần Thơ city legal-information portal, 2 April 2026.
• Vendor estimate: Ken Research, Vietnam infant formula market, 2025.

Where this work stops

MWY does not import, distribute or sell infant formula or baby food, register products, file price declarations or give legal advice, and takes no commission from importers, distributors, retailers or platforms. The rules above are summarised for planning; every label and creative needs a review by Vietnamese counsel before launch.

What we do in Go-to-Market Strategy is put the questions above into the entry plan before money is committed: the range split at 24 months, the registration and price filings as dependencies on the launch calendar, the channel mix measured from sell-out, and a marketing plan that spends only where the rules allow. A brand that first needs the market measured can buy that step on its own: Vietnam Market Research is six weeks on one product line, ending in a written answer on whether Vietnam deserves a budget. How baby nutrition fits the wider consumer and retail picture is on our consumer and retail page.