For the past three decades, Vietnam has been a country dependent on factory work and now it is moving up the value chain into electronics. Smartphone developer giant Samsung Electronics, for example, has invested $17.3 billion in Vietnam-based factories. Science is emphasized in public schools. University graduates who work for foreign tech firms will know more about how to make phones.
Vietnamese companies have come out with a list of their own phones, mostly cheaper Android models. The QPhone and BPhone were among the first. Now a subsidiary of the Ho Chi Minh City-based conglomerate Vingroup is selling a brand of handset called the Vsmart for about $100.
The problem is, even in their own homeland, Made-in-Vietnam phones don’t sell. But why? It is because the Vietnamese can get more recognized phone brands for around the same prices.
Foreign brands hold higher status than local equivalents, says Maxfield Brown, senior associate with the business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City. “The trajectory for consumer demand in Vietnam for electronics is currently trending toward an interest in international products and I would expect it to continue as consumer spending rises,” he says. Wages are rising in Vietnam though still as low as $171 a month.
Read more about this topic over at Forbes.
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