More comers

 In mid May 2011, the domestic tablet PC market unexpectedly witnessed the appearance of a quite strange brand - PI C002. This is the “tablet PC with a Vietnamese brand” provided by PI Vietnam, a company which still has not been well known in Vietnam.

 Just some days later, HiPT Mobile, and then FPT Mobile affirmed they are following the programs to develop Vietnamese tablet PCs.

 Do Giang Vinh, Director of HiPT Mobile, said that the company is gathering strength on researching and developing tablet PCs and it plans to launch the first product into the market after three months.

 Meanwhile, Le Hoang Hai, Marketing Deputy Director of FPT Mobile, has revealed that the company’s tablet PCs may hit the market in July 2011.

 The two executives have declined to reveal the details of the products and the distribution plans, but they both said that their tablet PCs will run on the Android operation system. FPT Mobile’s tablet PCs would have a 7 inch screen, while HiPT will have products with 7 inch and 10 inch screens.

 In fact, one year ago, at least two domestic companies, namely Hanel and CMS Computer, belonging to CMC Group, announced that they had spent a lot of money to research and develop Vietnamese tablet PCs. However, to date, there has been no further information about the product commercialization of the two manufacturers.

 Therefore, the announcement by FPT Mobile and HiPT that they will market tablet PCs soon has surprised many people, who believe that the two companies will not be able to go farer than CMS or Hanel. Especially, HiPT has displayed its products already at the showroom at No 23 Quang Trung street, though the products has not been given names.

 Enterprises killing themselves?

 Two weeks after hitting the market, PI C002 tablet PC, which is considered the first Vietnamese tablet PC in Vietnam, has received a lot of criticism.

 The high-tech users’ community believes that PI C002 has two big problems in the sale prices and the features. The product is running based on Android 2.2 Froyo operation system, with RAM 512MB and 16GB memory.

 This means that the tablet PC model is nearly the same with many other China-made models, like Haipad M7 which has been selling widely in Vietnam. Especially, the Chinese products are very cheap at 4.5 million dong per product, while PI C002 is selling at 5.7 million dong, the price which is believed “unacceptable” for a Vietnamese brand.

 Analysts have commented that what is happening in the market shows that there are too few opportunities for tablet PCs which bear Vietnamese brands and are outsourced to China.

 A question has been raised on what HiPT and FPT Mobile need to do in order to make their products attractive to customers. Analysts believe that the products of the two manufacturers will have the same features with the Chinese products available on the domestic market. Therefore, the things that can differentiate the products must be the sale prices and the applications.

 Vinh from HiPT Mobile said: “We will provide many integrated applications in order to make the products competitive”. Meanwhile, FPT Mobile also said that the application store F-Store will be one of the big advantages to create competitiveness for its products.
Source: Vietnamnet