Vietnam isn’t a country you immediately associate with car manufacturing, but the nation’s richest man, billionaire Phan Nhat Vuong, hopes to turn it into one with his local startup VinFast.
The VinFast brand has been steadily growing over the past few years and recently started production of its first three vehicles, a hatchback, a sedan, and an SUV, while it’s also working on its very first all-electric vehicle. However, that’s not Vuong’s most ambitious goal, as he wants to have entered the American market by 2021.
According to Bloomberg, the businessman, who’s worth a touch over $9 billion, will spend as much as $2 billion of his own money to make VinFast successful in the United States.
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“Our ultimate goal is to create an international brand,” Vuong recently said at the Hanoi headquarters of VinFast’s parent company Vingroup JSC. “It will be a very difficult road and we will have to put in a lot of effort. But there’s only one road ahead.”
Vuong is targeting a U.S. launch despite not yet having a company on solid footings, given that VinFast isn’t expected to be profitable for as many as five years. What’s more, the company is selling its first three models below cost and, according to Vuong, Vingroup will have to spend the equivalent of $777 million annually over the next few years to cover the losses for VinFast. The businessman believes that to make the company successful, it has to grow beyond Vietnam as the local market is simply too small. As such, the entry into the U.S. market will be joined by expansion into Europe and Russia.
“We have the desire to build a Vietnamese brand that has a world-class reputation,” Vuong said. “Our biggest challenge is that Vietnamese products do not have an international brand. To many international friends, Vietnam is still a poor, backward country. We will have to find a way to market and prove our products represent a dynamic and developing Vietnam that has reached the highest standards of the world.”
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