The nation’s electronics exports have been booming following a period of consistent foreign investment into the sector, HSBC have stated in a recent report.

This comes after the country’s exports witnessed an annual surge of 50.5% in January, with the primary driver behind this growth being Samsung’s newly-released Galaxy S21 smartphone.

Most notably, electronics exports last year reached a record high of US$96 billion, representing a third of total Vietnamese exports.

HSBC largely attribute this rapid rise to Samsung’s investments in the country since 2008, with the South Korean company now operating six plants nationwide.

Furthermore, the country has also emerged as a growing supplier of chips, with over 11% of the global market share in 2019 after surging by 300% that year.

This increase in the production of computers also supports chip production.

Intel of the United States also established a chip assembly and testing facility in 2006 at a cost of US$1 billion, whilst reportedly injecting a further US$475 million in January in order to manufacture 5G products and core processors.

Moreover, tech giant Apple has been producing Airpods locally since May, 2020, and is likely to start producing iPads as early as the middle of this year.

Foxconn, a key supplier of Apple, also received a license in January to build a plant at a cost of $270 million in the northern province of Bac Giang. The Taiwanese contract manufacturer has so far invested a sum of US$1.5 billion in the country.

Moving forward, the nation’s competitive policies will continue to attract quality FDI, a factor which HSBC note as being crucial in helping the country move up the value chain.

Indeed, the nation must improve labour productivity through better education and vocational training, with the other priority being to improve infrastructure, according to the report.