Vietnam has become a world smartphone factory

After LG and Samsung, Microsoft recently decided to shift most of its smartphone manufacturing operations to a factory in Bac Ninh and turn Vietnam on its way to becoming the world's manufacturing technology factory.

Vietnam has become a world smartphone factory Picture 1

With a country of 90 million people and most of them are at working age, Vietnam has become an ideal market for technology giants. Stable macro environment, focusing on incentives for high-tech enterprises as well as attractive labor costs helps Vietnam become attractive to these giants.

Mid-August, Microsoft - the new owner of Nokia's mobile phone brand, announced its investment plan in Vietnam, choosing a factory in Bac Ninh as the main unit to produce smart mobile phones ( smartphones ). , instead of the previous cheap line.

The move is considered a turning point because the nearly 150-year-old phone company is in the process of "transfusion", all Nokia's Hungarian factories, part of its operations in China must even stop. More than 30 production lines from global factories will be brought to Vietnam by Microsoft later this year. Along with that, the capital disbursed to the factory increased, the monthly output was 3 times higher than expected and the complexity of the product improved, leading to the increase in selling price and export value.

When Nokia inaugurated a $ 300 million factory in Bac Ninh in October 2013, Stephen Elop - then General Manager of Nokia and now Vice President of Microsoft, once said that choosing Vietnam as a location to expand investment is because the group sees the competitive advantage of the market. Earlier, Nokia had two factories in Asia, located in India and China.

"Vietnam has the advantage of population, promising strong human resources. Besides, the country also has a good economic position, can access the product lines from here to international or reverse. " Mr. Elop commented.

Government incentives for high-tech businesses and the active cooperation of local governments also motivate Nokia to set foot in Vietnam. " The management agency gives a lot of incentives to us, including the application of corporate income tax rate of 10% within 15 years from the time of operation, exemption of corporate income tax within 4 years. from the first year of taxable income and 50% reduction of payable tax for the next 9 years , "he shared.

Therefore, after belonging to a boss who is familiar with Vietnam market ( Microsoft was officially present in Vietnam in 2007 ) and Elop still has a voice, then the group's choice in Vietnam market is also is understandable.

Earlier, Samsung also announced that it will turn Vietnam into a " complete global manufacturing base " with nearly $ 6 billion registered capital so far. The senior leader of this enterprise confirmed that after 5 years of officially starting production in Vietnam, the group's investment scale has increased by a dozen times.

" This shows that the Vietnamese market is very good, investment conditions are very good. Compared to other countries in the region, political stability is one of the factors that create trust for foreign investors and will continue to increase investment, "he said.

Another big man, LG Electronics, also announced to bring the 1.5 billion USD project in Hai Phong into operation in October. Unlike Nokia and Samsung, LG has not yet rushed to choose the "smartphone" as the main product from the beginning, but will target other core lines such as TVs, washing machines and vacuum cleaners. However, the representative of this unit also affirmed that after building the market, LG will invest in producing smart phones.

The owner of the technology brand bears the symbol of " flawed apple " which has not been officially invested, but has made changes to take into account the long-term future in Vietnam. Bloomberg's Haslinda Amin, who is in charge of Southeast Asia in a news report, said that " Apple is in agreement with FPT to develop the Vietnamese market in the near future ".

This intention was revealed after Apple sales in Vietnam grew impressively. According to Reuters , Apple's sales in Vietnam are three times higher than in the first three months of 2014, five times faster than growth in India - the country has invested a large amount of money to gain profits. So in the market share battle. Particularly for iPhone, sales in Vietnam doubled after every quarter and promise to continue to increase even more thanks to the push from young customers and the number of Internet users increases rapidly.

In the press conference that took place in the middle of July, the Vietnamese market was taken into consideration by its management and considered a potential market, a rarity in Apple's comments about the full market prospect. bridge.

The obvious impact after the increase in investment by large corporations is that the flow of foreign direct investment ( FDI) into Vietnam not only improves in quantity but also in quality, many workers have more jobs. , local economy improved and export value increased. Only Samsung, with more than $ 20 billion in export turnover of phones and components in 2013, has contributed greatly to improving Vietnam's trade balance.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Toan - Vice Chairman of the Association of Foreign Investment Enterprises ( VAFIE ), Vietnam is facing a great opportunity when multinational enterprises, especially in the high-tech sector choose this place. Ideal investment.

Explaining the preference of foreign investors, VAFIE representatives said that first of all due to a stable investment environment, Vietnam is also ready to integrate, participate in many bilateral and multilateral treaties. " These signals show that Vietnam is ready to shake hands with other countries. Infrastructure and human resources have also made progress and localities are gradually changing awareness in a more positive direction in attracting foreign capital. " , Mr. Toan said.

In particular, he emphasized that Vietnam is having a good opportunity to receive capital flows withdrawing from China due to instabilities in the macro environment and rising labor costs. " Vietnam has had a good relationship in the international market recently. Therefore, when leaving China, foreign investors will give priority to Vietnam. This is the opportunity to take in the context. investment environment flourishes, "he said.

However, in order to retain long-term investors and avoid " stomping on the spot" , the expert also recommends that the agency should continue to improve the business environment and reduce troubles in administrative procedures. .

" Vietnam still has to make efforts to reform administrative procedures, improve transparency and improve its infrastructure, when it is certain that foreign investment will increase even more, " Samsung representative said. Or recently, Microsoft also affirmed that the development of investment in the future will depend largely on the move to remove problems of management agencies when the corporation proceeds to transfer dozens of production lines from China, Hungary and Mexico return to Vietnam.