A 10-YEAR GOAL OF TRANSFORMING INTO TECHNOLOGY
By launching Vintech Technology Development Joint Stock Company, Big Data Research Institute, High Technology Research Institute, Scientific and Applied Technological Research Fund in August 2018, Vingroup officially announced a key investment strategy in the technology sector. Vingroup's primary goal is to become a world-class Technology - Industry - Service Group, in which technology accounts for the main proportion by 2028.
To turn those goals into reality, Vingroup has introduced many groups of solutions. With the technology segment, Vingroup has identified many key points that would receive the strong investment. The first is to focus on human resources and infrastructure to develop software production by setting up VinTech Company which is separated from VinSmart Company.
VinTech will concentrate on artificial intelligence (AI) research, software production and research and development of next-generation materials. The company has established two research institutes, the Big Data Research Institute, and the Vin Hi-Tech Research Institute (VHT).
The second focus is to invest in the high-tech research, development, and application center VinTech City in Hanoi, following the Silicon Valley model. The goal of VinTech City is to create a comprehensive ecosystem, which is similar to Silicon Valley to support IT startups with all the services, from office space to accommodation, etc. as well as setting up start-up supporting service companies.
The third is to establish a Technology Investment Fund with the mission of finding opportunities for cooperation and development of AI and technology projects that can be applied and developed in the global sphere. In addition to the financial support, Vingroup's partners will be entitled to use the Group's ecosystem for experimentation and commercialization of products.
In addition, VinTech also founded a Start-up Support Fund and relevant Applied Science and Technology Research to support domestic lecturers and students' research projects. The Fund is expected to promote the spirit of research and experimentation on scientific and technological studies, contributing to improve the abilities of engineers upon graduation. Besides, to contribute to the development of the technology industry in Vietnam - The Fund will also give the support to the National Innovation Center and the Vietnam Innovation Network.
VinSmart Research and Production Joint Stock Company was established in June 2018 by VinGroup's boss Pham Nhat Vuong, with an initial charter capital of VND 3,000 billion, of which VinGroup contributed 80%. By December 2018, the company announced the first four smartphone models in the low-end and mid-range segments.
Not stopping there, in November 2018, the Vingroup Board of Directors issued a resolution on the establishment of 4 subsidiaries at the same time, including 3 technology companies in areas such as cybersecurity, IT services and software production.
At the end of 2019 and early 2020, Vingroup withdrew from some businesses which require a huge capital such as retail, agriculture and aviation.
At the same time, the group gradually realized its determination to become a Technology - Industry - Service Group, in which Technology accounts for the main proportion.
Since the announcement of its strategy to switch to technology - industry - services, VinGroup has concentrated its capital investment on the new businesses. By the end of the second quarter of 2019, the group's manufacturing division had a total asset of more than VND 73,000 billion, second only to the real estate business.
VINGROUP GAINED INITIAL POSITIVE RESULTS
The first "sweet fruit" comes from the field of smartphone production. According to the market report of March 2020 by GfK, after 15 months, Vinsmart has accounted for 16.7% of the smartphone market share in Vietnam, joining the top three-brand list with market share of over 15%; keeping ahead a long distance from the rest of the market. GfK noted that Vsmart smartphones dominated the low-end phone segment, which is priced from VND 1-3 million. As a result, Vsmart accounted for 77% of the under-1-million VND smartphone market share at the end of March 2020, from only 1% in early February 2020. Similarly, the company accounted for 70% of the under 2 million VND smartphone market share in Vietnam.
Continuing its growth momentum, by May 2020, VinSmart announced that it had achieved sales of more than 1.2 million Vsmart phones after 17 months of stepping into the market. Especially, sales have grown strongly since the beginning of 2020, with a growth rate of up to 260%, corresponding to an average of nearly 200,000 products sold per month (from the beginning of 2020). After this milestone, Vinsmart announced the start of a new development phase, towards the high-end-trendy segment.
Not stopping there, Vinsmart started to apply new technologies researched and developed by Vingroup. In September 2020, VinSmart launched the Aris Pro smartphone equipped with a hidden camera under the screen and became one of the first manufacturers in the world to successfully master this technology.
To overcome the technological challenges, VinSmart cooperated with the VinAI Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (under the Vingroup Group) to develop AI technology to process VCam Kristal images exclusively for cameras hidden under the screen. The VCam Kristal allows capturing high quality images with the camera under display (CUD). By incorporating AI algorithms and models with computer vision, computational photography, and special neural network architecture, VCam Kristal overcomes the optical barriers of cameras hidden under the screen. The technology helps to eliminate blur, missing, noise and flare, color infidelity, etc. to create sharp selfies with 4K resolution.
VinSmart has become one of the first companies in the world to own a smartphone with a camera hidden under the screen. VCam Kristal marks an important step forward in AI camera technology on mobile phones, opening the door to commercialize high-quality hidden camera phones, realizing a seamless screen experience.
In addition to VCam Kristal technology, VinAI Research also introduces VSound Alto noise filtering technology on smartphones, based on the Deep Learning model in speech and sound processing.
Prior to that, VinAI Research announced 3 research projects that were published at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) 2020 in July 2020 and the first two scientific research results at NeurIPS - the world No. 1 Conference on artificial intelligence in Canada in December 2019.
In April 2020, VinAI Research also announced a successful research on accurate and stable facial recognition technology that operates precisely even if people are wearing a face mask; It becomes one of the first organizations in the world to successfully research this technology.
Not only these two organizations, other technology companies of Vingroup also had their initial results. Typically, the cybersecurity service company VinCSS obtained 3 FIDO2 certificates issued by the FIDO Alliance for strong authentication key products, strong authentication server and VinSmart's VOS operating system (in January, August and September, 2020 respectively); Vantix Technology Solutions and Services Company announced VinHR technology solution to improve employee productivity by 25% through AI and IoT devices in May 2020; Vin Big Data Research Institute with the deployment of VinDr medical imaging solution with an average accuracy of over 90% in June 2020.
Not only dominating the domestic market, Vingroup has announced its penetration into the global market, with the US as the first destination. In a conversation with the "First Move" talk show on CNN in July 2020, Ms. Le Thi Thu Thuy - Vice Chairman of Vingroup affirmed that Vingroup will not only sell electric cars as planned by 2021 but also Vsmart smartphones in the US market right in 2020.
Recently, in October 2020, Vingroup cooperated with Viettel to produce 5G base stations, with the aim of entering the global market.
WILL VINGROUP GET THE SUCCESS BY BEING "STRONGER BY RICE, DARING BY MONEY"?
It's not a surprise when Vingroup stepped into the technology sector in the context that 6 of the top 20 largest companies globally in Fortune Global 500 2019 were the technology giants such as Apple, Amazon, Samsung, Volkswagen, Daimler and Toyota. VinGroup still has many room to develop in this business even though it started as a real estate company.
According to a technological expert, win-or-lose in the field of technology depends greatly on the "DNA" keys. This is true even with technology giants in the world as it's not easy to succeed beyond their "core business".
Historically, almost all big technology companies in the world which are growing successfully started as a technological company. The "DNA" keys were pinned right at the beginning from the first founders. There are few technology companies that succeed if they started in other fields, a technological expert said.
However, this expert said that it is difficult to give comments about the case of VinGroup because he is not an insider. In other ways, Vingroup has got its high potential to be successful in the technology field thanks to its excellent and outstanding strategies combining with the huge capital investment and high quality human resources./.
