Feature: "Made in Vietnam" brands vie for world market as Chinese tech firm helps Vietnam's transformation

HANOI, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- For the Chinese firm TCL, Vietnam is the starting point of its journey venturing out to the overseas market in 1991.

TCL, founded in 1981 a couple of years after China's launch of reform and opening up, is now a leading global tech brand in display panels, TV sets, home comfort and mobile devices, operating its manufacturing and R&D centers in Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.

In Vietnam, TCL took a different approach from many other Chinese companies. Instead of testing the waters of markets outside China by selling products initially, TCL focused its efforts on manufacturing.

By acquiring a color TV factory from a Hong Kong company in Vietnam's Dong Nai province, TCL established its first overseas TV production base.

TCL had then no brand recognition in Vietnam. "The first 18 months were not profitable," said Ding Wei, general manager of TCL Smart Device (Vietnam) Company Limited.

To break the deadlock, TCL developed a lightning-proof TV that could maintain strong signal reception in complex climates and terrains specifically for Vietnam. To open the Vietnamese market, the company simply loaded up motorcycles with televisions to sell them from village to village.

The master stroke helped TCL meet local consumer demands and capture the market, becoming a household name in Vietnam. Ding told Xinhua that after the turnaround, TCL rose to second place in the Vietnamese color TV market in 2001. By 2023, it accounted for 14.4 percent of the market share, ranking in the top tier only after South Korea's Samsung and LG.

Behind this success is the upgrading of TCL's "Made in Vietnam" manufacturing capabilities. In 2019, TCL retired its Dong Nai factory, which had an annual production capacity of 200,000 units solely for the Vietnamese market, and replaced it with a new factory in Binh Duong.

"The Binh Duong factory now has an annual capacity of 8 million units, and actual output this year will reach over 6 million, with an estimated annual output value of 1 billion U.S. dollars," said Xu Linjun, general manager of Vietnam Base of TCL's Pan-Smart Screen BU Manufacturing Center.

The Binh Duong factory is TCL's first completely self-built overseas factory and one of the largest digital production bases established by a Chinese TV brand in Southeast Asia, targeting markets both in Southeast Asia and North America. The 1-millionth unit made in the new factory rolled off the line in 2020, and the 10-millionth in 2022.

According to Xu, 10 percent of the TVs from the Binh Duong factory are sold locally, while 90 percent are exported to North America. TCL also operates two other factories in northern Vietnam's Quang Ninh province, with one manufacturing smart audio products, and the other producing televisions and monitors, both primarily for export to European and American markets.

As of now, TCL has invested over 100 million dollars in Vietnam, creating more than 10,000 jobs for the locals.

"As we gradually release production capacity, many of our domestic supply chain partners have followed us to Vietnam. Currently, nearly half of our raw materials are sourced locally, and in the future, we plan to build a comprehensive support center to establish a complete supply chain, creating a more robust upstream and downstream industrial chain," Xu said.

According to data from Vietnam's General Statistics Office, electronics, computers, and components account for an increasingly large proportion of the country's total exports, significantly boosting overall export growth. In 2023, electronics, computers, and components emerged as the top category among Vietnam's export items, exceeding 10 billion dollars in trade value.

TCL's journey of "Made in Vietnam" reaching global markets reflects the deep integration of foreign investment in Vietnam's electronics industry.

Five years ago, Talway Vietnam Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Shanghai Greatway Industry Co., Ltd, began its "Made in Vietnam" journey in northern Vietnam, producing automotive starter batteries, multifunctional car jump starters and other electronic products. Currently, the company is preparing for the tendering and construction of a new high-precision automated factory scheduled for November.

Yang Yong, general director of Talway, said that mutual benefit is the main theme as Chinese and Vietnamese enterprises join hands to ride the wave of globalization. Talway's products are primarily exported to the European and American markets, with an annual export volume of approximately 200 million Chinese yuan (28.3 million U.S. dollars) and after the new factory is built, the export is expected to increase to 1 billion yuan (141.5 million dollars), he said.

"In our production, the proportion of the local Vietnamese supply chain was around 20 percent in 2019, reaching 30 percent in 2023, 40 percent in the first half of 2024, and is estimated to rise to 50 percent in the second half of the year," Yang said.

According to Nguyen Anh Dung, deputy director of the Foreign Investment Agency at the Ministry of Planning and Investment of Vietnam, since the establishment of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between Vietnam and China in 2008, economic and trade investment cooperation has always been a highlight of bilateral relations.

He hopes that Chinese investors would increase cooperation, enabling Vietnamese enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to integrate more deeply into the global value chain.

Looking ahead, Yang said that the company will collaborate with upstream and downstream enterprises to build an industrial supply chain.

TCL's founder and chairman, Li Dongsheng, emphasized the need to deepen the supply chain, saying, "We cannot just be a local assembling factory."

He believes the globalization of Chinese enterprises should shift from exporting products only to co-building industrial capabilities with local partners. That goal is to be achieved "by deeply rooting in the local economy and contributing to local development", Li said.