Vietnamese-made Phones Dominate Domestic Market

It is easy to own a mobile phone that is made in Vietnam these days, as phones with Vietnamese trademarks such as ABTel, Viettel, Hanel or FPT are available in many shops in Hanoi.
With a comparable quality and much cheaper prices than many of the world’s well known mobile phone firms such as Nokia, Samsung, Siemens, phones made in Vietnam have proved their competitiveness and have kept a firm foothold in the domestic market.
Doan Thanh Nhan from the Viettel Trade and Export-Import Company, said that Q-Mobile, distributed by the An Binh Telecom Company (ABTel) is the best seller in Vietnam because of its chain of Viettel shops, which represent 15-20 percent of Viettel’s total phone sales.
Q-Mobile occupies a 30 percent share of the domestic market for phones costing between 600,000-2 million VND.
According to ABTel’s General Director Nguyen Quang Minh, besides attempting to make Q-Mobile become the best seller by 2011, the company also plans to export the product to Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and a number of African countries.
After a one-year study, in June this year Viettel introduced 250,000 wireless home phones to the market. In addition, the business has also succeeded in manufacturing a special type of mobile phone for off-shore fishermen and patrol boats that is capable of covering a range of 120km, compared to only 80km for ordinary mobile phones.
Joining the competition for phones made in Vietnam, from 2008, the Financing and Promoting Technology Group (FPT) has its smart phone F99. While not making the breakthroughs that Q-Mobile has made, it has earned a good reputation thanks to its standard price of 1.89 million VND per phone, which is suitable to consumers’ incomes.
To improve the competitiveness of made-in-Vietnam phones, the business community has suggested that the Government gives incentives in income tax levies and the market.
Article via VietnamPlus