As the global industrial chain moves to Southeast Asia, Vietnam has become a major production center for electronics, food and beverages and other industries. The Vietnamese packaging machine market has shown a significant growth in demand in recent years. China has become the largest import source of Vietnamese packaging machines by virtue of its geographical proximity and cost advantages. High-end packaging machines from Germany and Japan also occupy a certain market share. How should Vietnamese local companies choose packaging machines? Let’s talk about it in this article.
Market and application areas in Vietnam
The food and beverage industry dominates demand
The main products in the Vietnamese food market are rich and diverse, covering agricultural products, processed foods, beverages and other categories. Vietnam is located in tropical and subtropical regions, with rich fruit resources, a wide variety of vegetables, and unique baked goods.
Food packaging currently occupies the largest share of the Vietnamese packaging machine market, especially vacuum packaging machines, filling machines and vertical packaging machines. In the vacuum packaging machine market in 2025, the food industry is expected to account for 43.6%, and the demand for meat, seafood and pre-prepared dishes will grow by more than 15%.
Rapid growth in the electronics and pharmaceutical sectors
The demand for electronic product packaging has increased due to the expansion of the mobile phone and computer assembly industries, and high-speed shrink packaging machines and smart labeling equipment have become hot spots. The pharmaceutical industry is driven by the demand for cold chain packaging of vaccines, and the market size of aseptic packaging machines has increased from 820 million yuan in 2022 to 1.39 billion yuan in 2025.
Equipment types are clearly differentiated
Semi-automatic packaging machines are still the mainstream, but the penetration rate of fully automatic equipment is increasing rapidly. For example, in the field of thin paper packaging machines, the proportion of intelligent solutions has increased year by year. In 2025, 67% of end users will consider the level of equipment intelligence as the primary consideration for purchasing, and this proportion is as high as 82% in the food field.
How to choose?
International brands dominate the high-end market
German Bosch, Japanese Mitsubishi and other companies occupy 70%-75% of the high-end equipment market, and their intelligent solutions are 35%-40% higher than domestic products. For example, the high-speed vertical packaging machine of Tokyo Automatic Machinery in Japan has a premium of 25%-30%, which is still favored by food companies.
Chinese products have significant cost-effectiveness advantages
With its geographical proximity and cost advantages, China has become the largest source of imports of packaging machines in Vietnam, accounting for more than 50% of the total equipment imports. From January to March 2024, China’s exports of packaging machinery to Vietnam increased by 46.6% year-on-year, and the growth rate of categories such as filling machines and sealing machines exceeded 20%, which is one of the fastest growing categories of China’s exports to Vietnam. Its core driving force comes from the explosive growth of Vietnam’s food and beverage industry – for example, Vietnam’s coffee exports rank second in the world, and the demand for filling machines in bottled beverage production lines has surged; Vacuum sealers are widely used in the packaging of perishable foods such as seafood and meat. In 2023, Vietnam’s aquatic product exports reached US$10.2 billion, directly driving the purchase of related equipment. In 2024, among the vacuum packaging machines exported by China to Vietnam, fully automatic stretch film vacuum packaging machines accounted for 45%. This type of equipment can realize full process automation from vacuuming, heat sealing to slitting, and adapt to the high cost-effectiveness demand of small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam.
Bag making machines will have an export growth rate of 25.5% in 2024, mainly used to produce food packaging bags, agricultural product woven bags, etc. The size of Vietnam’s plastic packaging market is expected to reach US$5.2 billion in 2025, and Chinese bag making machines will occupy 60% of the market share with a high-speed production capacity of 300 per minute and a price 40% lower than that of Japanese equipment.
Shrink packaging machines are hot-selling due to the surge in e-commerce logistics demand. In 2023, Vietnam’s e-commerce parcel volume reached 1.5 billion pieces. With a processing speed of 20 pieces per minute, the L-type sealing and shrink packaging machines made in China account for 70% of the market share. A Chinese company cooperated with a local logistics giant in Vietnam and its sales increased by 20% in half a year. Others, coffee packaging machines: Vietnam is the world’s second largest coffee exporter, and there is a strong demand for hanging ear coffee packaging machines. The ultrasonic hanging ear packaging machine launched by Foshan Packaging Machinery Company in China is compatible with a variety of materials such as aluminum foil and filter paper. The price is only 60% of Japanese equipment and has entered the supply chain of leading brands such as Zhongyuan Coffee. The demand of the pharmaceutical industry has driven the growth of the aluminum-plastic blister packaging machine market. In 2024, the market size of blister packaging machines in Vietnam is expected to reach 120 million yuan. Chinese equipment can meet GMP certification requirements and is 30% cheaper, accounting for 55% of the market share.
Case sharing
Vietnamese buyers are concerned about compliance (such as EPR), efficiency (automation), and cost, and Ông Lê Thịnh, the owner of a rice processing company in Hanoi, is no exception.
The company’s original packaging line relied on manual operation, requiring 5 workers per hour to complete bag making, sealing, quality inspection and other processes, and labor costs accounted for 35% of the total packaging cost. After considering various factors, EasternPack’s vertical packaging machine was introduced.
The PLC control system integrated in the equipment can realize the automation of the entire process from film unwinding, heat sealing molding to slitting and counting, and only 1 worker is required to monitor, and the proportion of labor costs is reduced to 12%. Calculated based on a monthly production capacity of 300 tons of rice, the annual labor cost savings are about 1.8 billion VND.
Traditional manual bag making has unstable tension control, resulting in uneven film stretching and a scrap rate of up to 4.2%. EasternPack equipment is equipped with a dual servo motor drive system, which adjusts the film tension through closed-loop feedback to reduce the scrap rate to 0.7%. Based on the monthly consumption of 12 tons of packaging film (unit price of 72 million VND/ton), the annual reduction in material waste is about 349 million VND.
At the same time, EasternPack has set up distributors in Vietnam to shorten the equipment maintenance response time to within 24 hours. The timely response of after-sales and maintenance services reduces the delay caused by machine downtime. Before going into production, the equipment manufacturer dispatched a technical team to the factory for debugging and optimized the sealing parameters for the high humidity environment in Vietnam.
In terms of comprehensive benefits, the improvement of packaging has increased sales, and the intelligent packaging production has also reduced packaging costs, which is a win-win situation.
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