China’s Xiaomi has produced its first batch of smartphones in Vietnam, the company announced on Thursday, hoping to expand its position in Southeast Asia.
The devices were produced at a factory in Thai Nguyen province, north of the capital Hanoi, the company said in an emailed statement. The factory is run by Xiaomi’s partner, DBG Technology.
Vietnam has emerged as a regional manufacturing hub for global electronics manufacturers in recent years. The country’s smartphone export value, mainly produced by Samsung Electronics, rose 12.4 percent last year to $57.5 billion (approximately Rs. 4,55,070 crore).
Xiaomi reported that the first batch of smartphones made in Vietnam has been shipped to a local distributor and that the company will soon export smartphones to other markets in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Thailand.
The company did not provide further details on its production capacity in Vietnam.
Xiaomi isn’t the only company looking to ramp up production outside of China. Last month, Apple began shifting some of its iPad production to Vietnam amid ongoing supply chain disruptions. This marked the first time the Cupertino-based company has moved production of its iPad models out of China. One of the primary reasons Apple moved its iPad production to Vietnam is to overcome the restrictions imposed by the strict COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai and other cities in the country.
Over the past decade, South Korean smartphone giant Samsung has already shifted much of its smartphone production to Vietnam, where it makes more than 50 percent of its phones and has seen little disruption to production so far. South Korea’s Gumi factory, which briefly closed in 2020 amid the pandemic, accounts for a small portion of total output.
