Pega has launched four electric bikes, with 35 percent of the product content made in Vietnam. The manufacturer is also considering the manufacture of smart electric bikes.

However, many people are doubtful about the localization ratio of 35 percent announced by Pega. 

“I know many Vietnamese enterprises import Chinese products and then label the products with their labels and sell as Vietnamese products. Pega maybe the same,” said Hoang Nam Hung, a parent in Cau Giay, who is seeking to purchase a bike for his daughter, a 10th grader.

Viettel, the military telecom group, has launched its first anti-wiretapping smartphone with a high localization ratio of 90 percent.

The manufacturer said that its anti-wiretapping smartphone ensures a high security level, equal to that of the phone used by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and its price is very ‘reasonable’, just $1,000, much lower than products of the same kind sold in the world market.

On technology forums, commenters say that Viettel just ‘talks big’ about the product’s security and origin.

VNPT Technology has marketed Lotus, a smartphone model, saying that the most important phases of the production process, from designing to assembling circuits and examining product quality, are done in Vietnam.

“This is a product created from 100 percent of efforts and wisdom of the Vietnamese,” VNPT stated.

Two  years ago, BKAV, a well-known internet security firm, when launching BPhone, introduced it as a ‘Vietnamese product’. It faced doubts and criticism from the public, since few believed Vietnamese could make high-technology products.

In fact, people have reasons to look at these ‘made-in-Vietnam’ products with dubious eyes. The manufacturers still have to rely on foreign technologies when making the most important parts of products. 

The anti-wiretapping phone, for example, uses Qualcomm microprocessors, while Qualcomm’s chips run VNPT Technology’s products and BKAV’s BPhone.

However, Vietnamese manufacturers said it was unfair to sneer at them for using foreign made components, because manufacturers like Apple and Samsung also do so.

“We suffered a lot of criticism when we began the project on making smartphones in Vietnam,” the director of a smartphone enterprise said. 

“Domestic users doubt the product quality, honesty and intelligence of Vietnamese people,” he said.

The director complained that Vietnamese consumers prefer foreign products to domestic ones, believing that foreign products are always better. 

Therefore, any made-in-Vietnam product will have to struggle to survive in the home market.

RELATED NEWS

Bphone offers smartphone exchange

BKAV meets foreign partners in an attempt to export BPhones

Nam Mai