Together with chained cafés and bars, sales reached VND88 trillion ($3.8 billion) last year, up 6 percent from 2017, according to market research firm Euromonitor.

A survey of young people in six ASEAN countries released Friday by the World Economic Forum ranks Vietnam third in entrepreneurial ambition.

It was behind Indonesia at 35.5 percent and Thailand at 31.9 percent, said the survey, which polled 56,000 people aged 15-35 years old from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in July.

ASEAN young people show a strong preference for entrepreneurial settings. 31.4 percent of them are either entrepreneurs or work for a startup, and in the future, 33.1 percent aspire to work in an entrepreneurial setting, the survey said.

Respondents also show a strong desire to work for a foreign multinational company. 8.6 percent of them work for a foreign multinational now, but 18.8 percent would like to work for one in the future.

Established traditional companies might face challenges in attracting employees in the future, WEF said. Small and medium businesses, family businesses and big local companies now employ 42.8 percent of respondents, but only 28.3 percent of them want to continue working there in the future.

Vietnam is seeing an increasing interest from young people in establishing their own businesses. Local startups received a combined $889 million through 92 investment deals last year, according to Topica Founder Institute, a startup accelerator program in Vietnam and Thailand.

This was three times the mount this community received in 2017 with the same number of deals, and six times that in 2016, it said.

The country has only one startup unicorn, defined as a privately-owned startup company worth at least $1 billion, and it wants to have five billion-dollar tech firms by 2025 and 10 by 2030.

A report by market research firm Kantar Worldpanel also said that this year, as of June 16, a Vietnamese person in rural areas consumed 56 packs of instant noodles on average, up 5 percent year-on-year. The corresponding figure in urban areas was 36 packs, up 4 percent.

Around 90 percent of Vietnamese households bought instant noodles in that period, it said.

Instant noodles are bought at different channels and they are priced differently, too, the report said. An average noodle pack costs VND4,200 (18 cents) in traditional markets, VND5,300 (23 cents) in mini stores and VND5,500 (24 cents) in supermarkets.

Kantar said that although the instant noodles market was now in a ” slow-growth maturity stage,” there were still opportunities for manufacturers to attract more customers with new products, giving them a competitive edge.

However, for a new product to be successful, brands need to make “an outstanding offer to a sizable consumer need” and have effective launches, it added.

Vietnam was the world’s fifth largest instant noodles consumer last year with 5.2 billion servings, a 2.8 percent increase from 2017, according to the World Instant Noodles Association.

Supply in the southern province is now at over 24,000 units, second in the south only to Ho Chi Minh City, according to a recent report by real estate consultant Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) Vietnam.

The supply figure could rise even further as more buildings are still being built, JLL said, adding that most projects are located in Di An and Thuan An communes, which are near HCMC.

The report said the reason for the large supply is that legal procedures are faster in Binh Duong than HCMC, where many projects have now stalled because of legal obstructions.

Industry insiders said HCMC’s stagnant supply in the last 12 months has created an opportunity for the Binh Duong apartment market.

In Binh Duong, home to an increasing number of industrial zones, workers and technical experts are the main buyers of apartments.

“Plenty of job opportunities are being created by the rapid development of the industrial segment, especially the manufacturing industry,” said Stephen Wyatt, country head of JLL Vietnam.

As one of the earliest industrial areas in the country, Binh Duong, 30 km north of Ho Chi Minh City, is among the most desired destinations for new manufacturers, thanks to excellent infrastructure and well-established administrative procedures to support their operations, industry insiders said.

Nguyen Anh Dao, CEO of real estate firm Viethome, which has been developing projects in Binh Duong for years, said locals’ preferences have been changing in recent years and they are now keenly interested in apartments, both for living and buying to lease to industrial zone workers.

Even as HCMC continues to limit new apartment projects, Binh Duong’s supply would continue to expand sharply this year and next, with HCMC-based developers accounting for 70 percent, he added.