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When will Vietnam be able to produce its own electronics?
In the last two years, the mobile phone market has witnessed the appearance of some 10 Vietnamese brands. However, this does not mean that Vietnam now can make mobile phones itself. What Vietnam has is just the brand name, while the products are made in China.
Vietnamese brands, China-made products
A lot of products are considered as Vietnamese products because they bear Vietnamese brands. However, in fact, they are made in China.
Their cheap price is their most outstanding characteristic. The prices of the mobile phones with Q-Mobile, Mobistar, Fmobile, Hitech, or Connspeed brands are mostly less than one million dong. Meanwhile, the most expensive products are no more than two million dong.
Tran Quang Hung, Secretary General of the Vietnam Electronics Association, said there is nothing Vietnamese in these phones except the brand names.
Nguyen Quang Tung, a senior executive of An Binh Telecom, which owns Q-Mobile brand, said his enterprise does not manufacture Q-Mobile brand phones in Vietnam, but it outsources its production to China. Tung said that China is considered the factory of the world. Meanwhile, it is clear that Vietnam, with its underdeveloped supporting industries, cannot manufacture mobile phones.
Tung said that he knows a company, which once moved a Motorola’s production line to Vietnam, hoping to manufacture 100 percent made-in-Vietnam mobile phones. However, the enterprise then had to give up the idea.
Pham Anh Xuan, a senior executive of Tran Anh Digital Appliance distribution chain, said that most Vietnamese enterprises choose to outsource to China because of low production costs.
All Vietnamese enterprises have to is to register their brands with management agencies and market their products.
What are Vietnamese enterprises doing?
In fact, many Vietnamese enterprises once cherished the hope of making high-tech products themselves to sell to Vietnamese customers. However, most of them have not been successful.
About 20 Vietnamese computer brandswere established, including Thanh Giong, G6, Sing PC, VTB and Mekong Xanh. However, people nowadays only know three most popular ones, CMS, Hanel, and FPT Elead. These brands are mostly selling in rural and remote areas.
Pham Anh Thang from Tung Duong Computing Company said that domestic enterprises once hoped they can make Vietnamese computers which have low prices and fit Vietnamese customers. However, they later realized that their computers cannot compete with foreign-made products.
Many Vietnamese brands have nearly disappeared. Thanh Giong brand computer, the product of FPT and CMS, which was marketed in 2004 and targeting students with its price of less than four million dong, has fallen into oblivion.
Similarly, very few people know about the existence of G6 brand computer, the product of six powers, Tran Anh, Mai Hoang, Vinh Trinh, Ben, Hanoi Computer and Phuc Anh.
FPT’s Elead computers can still be found, but they are not available at big home appliance centres.
“The products are called Vietnamese computers. But in fact, all the components are imports,” Thang said.
Explaining the failure of low cost computers, Thang said that customers with high income always purchase the products with well known brands, while low income people, especially, students, will buy components and assemble themselves. Therefore, the low cost computers cannot find buyers.
According to the Vietnam Electronics Association, Hoa Phat’s washing machines and air-conditioners have the highest locally made content ratios, at 40 percent, while TVs and computers only have 10-30 percent of components made in Vietnam.
Pham Huyen
vietnamnet
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