- Kyle Chua
Xiaomi Ships First Batch of Smartphones Manufactured in New Vietnam Plant
Xiaomi’s bid to expand its foothold in Southeast Asia appears to be moving full steam ahead. The Chinese electronics giant announced on Thursday that it’s shipping the first batch of smartphones manufactured in its new plant in Vietnam.
The plant, which has a land area of about 200,000 square metres, is located in the Thai Nguyen province, north of the capital city of Hanoi. It covers a US$80 million investment for Xiaomi. Operations, meanwhile, are run by the Hong Kong-based DBG Technology.
Xiaomi said the first batch of smartphones is already on the way to local distributors. It also said it looks to use the plant to export more smartphones to other Southeast Asian markets, such as Malaysia and Thailand, though it did not share details on the production capacity of the facility.
GSMArena notes that, when it comes to smartphones, Xiaomi has a 22% market share in Vietnam, putting it behind Samsung which has about 34%. Perhaps this is no coincidence as Samsung is another smartphone brand that has set up shop in the country.
The South Korean electronics manufacturer is Vietnam’s biggest foreign investor and exporter, with multiple plants across the country producing different products and components, including circuit boards and camera modules, among others. The company added over US$920 million of investments to local production operations, which accounts for as much as half of Samsung’s global output.
Samsung is said to employ 6,585 people in one of its plants which are similarly located in Thai Nguyen. Part of the new investment will reportedly fund the construction of housing facilities for these employees.
Vietnam has been positioning itself as a major manufacturing hub for global technology brands in recent years, attracting investments from the likes of Intel, Foxconn and LG, as Nikkei Asia points out. These companies, along with Samsung, a couple of months ago faced supply chain stoppages due to the country being hit by a massive wave of COVID-19 infections. But that problem looks to be behind the country now, with most of its population vaccinated.
Xiaomi has announced that it’s shipping the first batch of smartphones manufactured in its new plant in Vietnam.
The plant, which has a land area of about 200,000 square metres, is located in the Thai Nguyen province, north of the capital city of Hanoi.
The Chinese electronics giant added that it looks to use the plant to export more smartphones to other Southeast Asian markets, such as Malaysia and Thailand.
Samsung also has plants in Vietnam, which has recently positioned itself as a global technology brand manufacturing hub.