Smartphone maker VinSmart, a subsidiary of Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup, has signed a deal with Google to develop Vsmart-branded smart TVs. The smart TVs will run Google’s Android operating system and integrate with other Google features such as Voice Search and Google Assistant in Vietnamese.
The deal was signed between Mike Hayes, who currently leads Google’s business development for Android & Play platform partnerships across APAC, and Nguyen Van Hai, a representative from Vingroup and former deputy director of major telecom provider VNPT.
According to a company announcement by Vingroup, VinSmart will develop five smart TV models, which they will introduce to consumers at the end of December. This is the second segment involving electronics manufacturing for Vingroup after competing in the smartphone market with eight released models.
Vingroup is well-known for pushing new products to the market very quickly and they will have to compete with big names like Samsung and LG in the mid-range segment for smart TVs.
The conglomerate is Vietnam’s biggest property company by market value but has been expanding rapidly into medium and high tech manufacturing as well as tech-enabled services.
