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Once a real estate and retail focused conglomerate, Vingroup
became Vietnam's first fully-fledged domestic carmaker two
months ago with a business called Vinfast.
Its four Vsmart phone models are being made in its factory in
Vietnam's northern city of Haiphong, with a capacity to produce
5 million phones a year in the first stage.
"If Vinfast starts our industrial business, Vsmart is the
starting point for Vingroup to develop an ecosystem of
electronics and smart products," Nguyen Viet Quang, Vingroup's
chief executive and vice chairman, said.
The Vietnamese firm wants to sell its smartphones and other
smart products to all continents and has identified Russia and
Spain, where it owns 51 percent of Spanish technology firm BQ,
as potential markets in Europe.
In Vietnam, which has a population of 95 million, Vingroup will
be looking to win market share from Samsung and Apple with its
new smartphones.
Vietnam is the largest smartphone production base for Samsung,
while key Apple supplier Foxconn is also considering setting up
a factory.
The four Vsmart phones launched on Friday use Qualcomm's
Snapdragon 435, 430 and 660 chips and Google's Android operating
system.
They will go on sale in Vietnam from Saturday with a price range
of 3.39-6.59 million dong ($145.57-$282.99).
Qualcomm and Vingroup's technology unit Vinsmart also signed a
multimode global patent license deal on Friday.
"We will not stop at smartphones and will gradually roll out
other smart products," VinSmart's chief executive Tran Minh
Trung said at the launch.
(Reporting by Mai Nguyen; Editing by Alexander Smith)
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