Some of the planned two million handsets have already been delivered to the undisclosed client.
Nikkei Asia reported that Vingroup has reached a smartphone manufacturing deal with an unnamed US company. According to the contract, VinSmart will provide four different models of 4G-compatible devices, with the hope of expanding to the 5G models they are developing in the future. The US company will have a full-time team based in Vietnam overseeing the production and will inspect them upon arrival.
"This is an important step to supplying our own products to the US market," said Lê Thị Thu Thủy, chief of Vingroup's smartphone producing unit, VinSmart.
The announcement coincides with trends of countries looking to shift production from China to neighboring countries, including Vietnam. Vingroup is also reportedly in talks with several large electronic distributors in Australia.
Vingroup began producing phones under the brand VinSmart in 2018 and has ramped up production capacity at its Hanoi manufacturing plant. As of this past April, it controls 11% of the Vietnamese phone market after having surpassed Apple, but remains behind Samsung, Oppo and Vivo. It currently sells phones in Russia, Myanmar and Spain.
VinSmart's main manufacturing plant is located on a 14.8-hectare plot of land within the Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park in Hanoi. It's expected to produce about 125 million devices a year once completely finished, including phones, IoT devices and other smart devices.
[Photo via Vietnam Times]
