FPT's CEO Truong Gia Binh

Analysts, however, said it was unfair to compare a Vietnamese corporation with India’s powerful IT industry.

Binh said at FPT Software, a subsidiary of FPT, 28 percent of its revenue comes from digital projects. India’s IT industry may only reach that rate by 2020.

“We are certainly ahead of China in the digital sector. Of course, we are still not satisfied about the rate. Will we come closer to the 100 percent threshold in the next five or 10 years? This remains a challenge for us,” Binh said.

Nguyen Ai Viet, former head of the Information Technology Institute of the Hanoi National University, said he had no comment about the figure released by Binh about 28 percent of revenue coming from digital projects.

FPT Software, a subsidiary of FPT, 28 percent of its revenue comes from digital projects. India’s IT industry may only reach that rate by 2020.

“I believe that Binh released an accurate figure,” he said. 

However, he said the figure only shows FPT’s business performance, not the performance of Vietnam’s IT industry.

Viet noted that it is unfair to compare the revenue of a subsidiary of FPT Group with an entire country and this doesn’t reflect Vietnam’s real capability in the IT industry. 

“Congratulation on FPT’s achievements! However, this is just the achievement FPT Software gained for one year. It is still unclear if Japan continues to place orders with FPT,” he said.

Commenting about Binh’s statement, an analyst said no one can say Vietnam has outstripped India in IT industry. FPT alone can be better than some companies in India. FPT is considered the largest IT firm in Vietnam, but that does not mean it is better than any Indian firm. 

“When you compare FPT with India, this is like comparing the best indexes of one district with the average indexes of a whole country,” he said. “It will not be a surprise if a district in Vietnam has indexes in some advantageous fields that are even higher than the US.”

The analysts said there was still a large gap between Vietnam and India’s IT industry. The US has mostly been using workers from India.

Viet said that Vietnam may have opportunities to make a breakthrough in the fourth industrial revolution. However, it would be difficult to catch up with India in IT development. 

“We have to look at the situation realistically instead of deluding ourselves,” he commented.

In the interview, Binh mentioned FPT’s project on making self-propelled cars, saying that the cars will operate on the FPT campus.