VietNamNet Bridge - Nguyen Tu Quang, CEO of BKAV, the manufacturer of BPhone, said making phones is like making pho (a traditional dish of Vietnam). All shop owners use rice noodles and small spring onions, but only those who have know-how can generate good products. 


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CEO of BKAV Corporation Nguyen Tu Quang



Many questions were raised for Quang by attendees at a workshop held recently by the Communist Party Economics Committee.

“You sell BPhone at VND7 million. You say phone parts and accessories are all imports. What is the Vietnamese value in the smartphone?” one person asked.

In reply, Quang said BKAV is just like Apple and Samsung, which also use components made by other companies for their products. They, for example, buy capacitors and resistors from Japanese Murata Company which supplies products to the entire world, including BKAV.

All the shops make pho with similar materials, but the shops which have good receipts and know-how will attract more customers. This is the value of pho shops, and the same thing can be seen in the smartphone manufacturing industry.

Regarding Vietnamese value and the added value in the smartphone, Quang spoke about pho shops. All the shops make pho with similar materials, but the shops which have good receipts and know-how will attract more customers. This is the value of pho shops, and the same thing can be seen in the smartphone manufacturing industry.

Quang went on to say that most of the added value in smartphone products lies in research, idea, design, marketing, sale and post-sales.

Can BKAV make smartphone accessories? Quang said that there was no need to try to make accessories. 

“Smartphone manufacturers don’t need to think of making chips because Qualcomm can provide high-quality chips. They also don’t have to make capacitors and resistors because they can buy products at good prices from Japanese companies,” he said.

Samsung from South Korea once held the biggest market share in China in 2012. However, the market share fell to 1 percent in 2018 because Chinese companies now can master technologies to create competitive products. The same may be repeated with other manufacturers.

As for BKAV, the corporation hopes it can reach more than 34 percent of market share by 2023 and obtain turnover of $2 billion.

The other Vietnamese brand which has caught public attention is Vsmart. 

Analysts believe that Vsmart will ‘make things happen’ in Vietnam. S Mart belongs to Vingroup, a financially powerful conglomerate which has been very successful in all its investment projects. And the Vsmart factory is large and modern, utilizing the most advanced technology.

“Vsmart is following a different way. It doesn’t assemble products, but it has a complete production line and masters technology to make things from A to Z. This means that Vsmart products have nearly 100 percent Vietnamese content,” said Nguyen Viet Anh, deputy CEO of FPT Retail.


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