VietNamNet Bridge – The success of Q-mobile when launching Vietnamese brand mobile phones 4-5 years ago has prompted more and more domestic firms to jump on the bandwagon.

FPT, Viettel, Q-mobile and Mobistar have marketed the products bearing their brands. However, analysts believe that their products must not bear their brands and must not considered Vietnamese products, because the firms do not join the manufacturing process of the products.

None of the Vietnamese branded smart phone suppliers has said they are OEM, or Original Equipment Manufacturers which means the real designers and manufacturers of mobile phone products. Most of them just gave ambiguous information that they designed the products and then outsourced to Chinese producers under the mode of ODM (original designed manufacture).

Only the military telco Viettel has announced it has built a phone accessories and 3G USD factory in 2011 with the investment capital of VND200 billion. The factory reportedly has the production capacity of 5 million 3G USBs and 3 million mobile phones a year.

In 2011, Viettel showed its strong determination to penetrate more deeply into the phone set market, revealing that it would make phones not only for the domestic consumption, but for export as well. The export markets Viettel targeted were Laos, Cambodia, Haiti, Peru, Mozambique and Cameroon.

Especially, Viettel said it was willing to pay thousands of dollars a month to the experienced mobile phone designers who graduated foreign schools.

However, the smart phones with VIettel brand launched into the market so far showed that Viettel has not joined deeply into the manufacturing process,

In October 2012, Viettel launched Viettel V8403, its first Viettel branded product. However, the signs on the product cover showed that this was made by Chinese ZTE Group. Especially, V8403 was found as having the exactly same design with ZTE V790 available in Russia or India.

This made analysts think that Viettel bought an existing product item of ZTE and become the exclusive distributor of the product in Vietnam. However, unlike other distributors, Viettel sold the products under its brand, associated with its mobile services.

As such, what Viettel did when joining the V8403 production process was just the distribution of the products only.

Meanwhile, when launching Viettel V8404 model into the market earlier this year, Viettel articulated that this was a product of Huawei, and Huawei’s brand was shown clearly on the back cover of V8404. In this case, it was clear that Viettel simply imported the products and distributed them with associated services.

Commenting about the Vietnamese branded smart phone products available on the market, most experts, who asked to be anonymous, said most of the Vietnamese brands are the clients who buy existing products from Chinese companies, such as K-Touch, to distribute in Vietnam.

In general, Vietnamese firms choose to buy the products which succeeded in Chinese market, to be sure that the products can be sold well in Vietnam. After receiving orders, Chinese ODM would install software, interface, and covers with the signs and labels as requested by the Vietnamese partners.

In most cases, Vietnamese firms buy existing products from Chinese companies for reselling, while they don’t intend to order any changes with the products. It is simply because if they want some changes, they would have to pay higher for the products. Especially, ODMs would only accept to make the changes when Vietnamese place big orders.

NLD