1. The “Vietnamese brand tablet” dream still far away
20/09/2012 08:34:00 (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – After marketing Vietnamese brand mobile phones, Vietnamese enterprises now
cherish the ambitious plan to conquer the market with Vietnamese brand tablets.
The pioneers
Hanel, a big electronics group and CMC Technology Group, a well-known information
technology, were considered the pioneers in the field when both planned to implement the
projects on making Vietnamese brand tablets for domestic sale.
Nguyen Phuoc Hai, General Director of CMS, a subsidiary of CMC Group, once said that the
tablet production plan would be a priority task for CMS.
The former group planned to have its products hit the market in November 2010, while the latter
scheduled to market its products in March 2011. However, no product has been launched the
market so far, and it is highly possible that the projects have fallen into oblivion.
Analysts have every reason to think that CMC has given up the idea of making Vietnamese
brand tablets. Mobile phones are believed to be “easier to make” products if compared with
tablets. Meanwhile, in July 2012, CMC’s Board of Directors decided to halt the operation of
CMC Blue France in its plan to cut down expenses. The decision was made after the two
ineffective operation of the company.

2. While CMS gave up the idea when the tablet was still on… paper, Hanel’s tablet took shape
already. However, even Hanel’s tablet has never appeared on the market. The salesmen of Hanel
said they only heard about the product, while they did not see the product with their eyes.
The brave manufacturers
While Hanel and CMC decided to abandon the dream of Vietnamese brand tablets soon, other
manufacturers seemed to be braver and continued their way. Pi Vietnam, FPT, Tri Nam have all
launched their products to the market.
However, the products, after a period of struggling to survive, have been dislodged from the
market, because they could not compete with foreign made products, though they had lower
prices.
The Tri Nam Trade Company in March and April 2012 once shocked the public when reporting
the sales of 10,000 BiPad 9s, priced at 1.98 million dong within the sale promotion program. The
success of Tri Nam was explained by the reasonable business strategy, under which customers
could not pay a deposit first and get products later, while the manufacturer promised the product
warranty.
However, the next BiPads could not catch the attention of customers any more, including the
ones who are interested in low cost products.
Prior to that, FPT also stirred up the public when stating that its first table products were sold out
in the first sales campaign in October 2011, where 1000 products were consumed.
However, a lot of customers said that they could not see FPT’s tablet products on the shelves of
supermarkets or high-tech product sale agents.
Meanwhile, Thoi bao Kinh te Vietnam, which conducted a mini survey at supermarkets and sales
agents, has found out that no one asked for the products, while no one heard about the tablet
products made by FPT Group.
The far-away hope
Mai Phu Phong, Director of PhoneGee, who has been trading mobile phones and tablets for
many years, said that Vietnamese brand mobile phones still can “live” for short periods on the
market, while Vietnamese brand tablets nearly cannot exist.
Phong said customers nowadays would use used foreign made products which have nearly the
same prices as brand new Vietnamese tablets, rather than buying the products with low quality.
(Compiled by C. V)