Vietnam’s first domestic automaker VinFast said it has officially opened its branches in North America and Europe and is “ready to compete with leading brands in the US.”
Belonging to the largest corporation Vingroup in Vietnam, VinFast became Vietnam’s first domestic car manufacturer when it launched gasoline-powered vehicles with its own logo in 2019. Recently, the group’s car company Vingroup is licensed to test electric vehicles in California, with plans to open a factory in the US and consider an initial public offering in the US.
VinFast said in a statement that the company put its branches in the US, Canada, France, Germany, and the Netherlands into operation on July 12, in preparation for the market launch to “step by step” realize the goal of turning VinFast into a global smart electric car company.
The US, along with Canada, and the three European countries mentioned above are the five key markets in VinFast’s business expansion plan from the very beginning, according to the company’s statement released on July 12. The company said it has been rushing to complete the apparatus and establish a business platform in the host countries mentioned above for more than a year in order to reach the markets.
Bloomberg in March this year said that VinFast plans to open a factory in the US after setting up a research office with 50 members in San Francisco, California, to prepare for the sale of cars here in 2022.
In a statement issued on July 12, Vietnam’s electric car startup said it will officially launch two smart electric car models VF e35 and VF e36 globally in March next year. According to VinFast, their first electric car model, the VF e34, has set a record in the Vietnamese market when it received more than 25,000 deposit orders after only a short time of opening for sale.
“With smart cars backed by VinFast’s research and production capabilities, we are confident that VinFast can compete fairly with the top brands in the US today,” said Jeremy Snyder, director of VinFast’s market development director in the US, said in the statement. VinFast said Mr. Snyder has 10 years of senior management experience at Tesla, the leading US electric car company founded by billionaire Elon Musk.
However, VinFast recently faced adverse information from social networks and the press about a series of its cars having lost wheels and broken gears in different localities in Vietnam while the company built a plan to operate in the US and other markets around the world. Most recently, a YouTube channel owner in Vietnam at the end of April posted many videos listing errors on VinFast’s cars, but the company denied such information as “false.”
VinFast set a target of selling 56,000 electric cars by 2022, but then reduced the target to 15,000 units due to a global chip shortage, billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong, Vingroup’s chairman, was quoted by Reuters as saying in a statement. the company’s annual meeting last month.
According to the British news agency, although VinFast sold 30,000 cars last year in the Vietnamese market, it has not yet made a profit.
In an interview with Reuters in April, VinFast’s US executive said it was betting on a battery rental plan and planned to make most of its sales online in the US in order to eliminate the need for costly dealer networks.
To support growth, VinFast said in April that it would consider an IPO in the US or a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). But according to a Reuters source, in May, VinFast’s IPO offering, scheduled for the second quarter and expected to help the company raise at least $2 billion, is facing delays later than originally planned.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
