"You probably saw after [the] listing how our share prices went, and I think that a lot of people were surprised," said Thuy in Nikkei Asia on the occasion of the largest annual forum of Southeast Asian enterprises, an event within the framework of ASEAN Summit.

“But we were not surprised because we believe in the potential of [our] company," Thuy said.

The CEO believes that VinFast shares are volatile, but this is not worrying. She has high hopes on the company’s potential, which is supported by the rapid expansion of the electric automobile ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

VinFast is the first electric automobile manufacturer in Vietnam and ASEAN that has listed shares on the US bourse. On August 15, VinFast marked a historic milestone in its history when listing 2.3 billion VinFast shares (VFS) on Nasdaq.

VFS debuted at $22 per share and the price quickly reached its peak of $93 per share, which means a capitalization value of $210 billion, before going down.

On September 1, VFS closing price was at $29.5 per share, which meant a capitalization value of $70 billion.

As such, VinFast’s valuation once climbed to $210 billion (August 28), ranking third among the world’s largest automobile manufacturers, just following Tesla owned by the richest billionaire Elon Musk and Toyota ($223 billion).

However, the VFS price sharp falls in the next four consecutive trading sessions caused VinFast’s capitalization value to drop, resulting in proportional asset value decreases of billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong.

However, Thuy has rejected all concerns about the unstable VFS price performance, while maintaining confidence in VinFast’s potential.

She stressed that VinFast could do what many thought was unfeasible since it began on the path of entering the electric vehicle market six years ago.

She went VinFast has introduced seven car models in Vietnam and has delivered 11,300 electric cars in the first half of 2023, mostly in Vietnam, while 999 products have been exported to the US.

She believes that the continued development of the electric automobile ecosystem in Southeast Asia will support VinFast’s growth.

As for Indonesia, Thuy shows her optimism about electric vehicle manufacturing in ASEAN as the country has big nickel reserves and has a large battery manufacturing industry in the region. 

Mentioning electric vehicle joint ventures in ASEAN, she stressed that VinFast can find most components for electric vehicles in Southeast Asia and the region’s electric vehicle manufacturing can become powerful and ‘export electric vehicles to the rest of the world’.

Manh Ha