Samsung explores new horizons in Vietnam

Samsung is breaking into the Vietnamese stock market and considering launching its patent electronic payment services

Along with the launching of Galaxy Note 8, the newest Samsung smartphone model, on September 13 in Ho Chi Minh City, the Korean giant will also launch Samsung Pay, its mobile payment service, soon.

This is not the first time that Samsung mentions launching Samsung Pay. Last year, when the company launched the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge in Vietnam, Kim Kyung-dong, director of Samsung Pay, said that Vietnam was considered a potential market for Samsung Pay and expected to convert the country’s majority of consumers to electronic payments.

At the time, Samsung Pay was expected to launch in Vietnam in 2016, however, to date, the company completed the entire procedures for launching Samsung Pay in Vietnam.

According to unofficial information, numerous domestic banks, including Vietcombank, VietinBank and BIDV, and even foreign banks like Shinhanbank and Citi Bank will support Samsung Pay to extend its network in Vietnam.

Several days ago, according to newswire Business Korea, Samsung Securities announced a cooperation deal with Caldera Pacific, a Hong Kong-based private equity fund, to buy a 40 per cent stake in Dragon Capital and become its second-largest shareholder.

According to the deal, Samsung Securities will hold 10 per cent and Caldera Pacific 30 per cent.

The deal aims to accelerate Samsung’s inroads into the Vietnamese stock market to keep up with competing compatriots who are already present in Vietnam’s numerous sectors.

Market experts forecast that acquiring a stake in Dragon Capital is the beginning of Samsung Securities’ strategy to enter the Vietnamese stock market and the company may additionally acquire stakes in other companies.

In March 2016, Samsung was granted the investment certificate for a large-scale research and development centre in Hanoi’s Hoang Mai district.

This $300-million project, which would be Vietnam’s largest research and development (R&D) centre to date, also marks the first time a global tech giant has chosen Vietnam as an R&D hub.

Samsung planned to build a 21-storey building on a three-hectare land plot and employ 2,000 labourers in 2016 and eventually 4,000 in the upcoming years. The total capital volume of $300 million would be disbursed within four years, including $50 million in the 2016-2017 period, $150 million in 2018, and the remaining $100 million in 2019.

However, to date, there has been no move to implement the project.

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