Seriously speaking, how about this phone?
Vietnam's Bkav launching high-end smartphones
ATSUSHI TOMIYAMA, Nikkei staff writer
HANOI -- Vietnamese software developer Bkav will make a foray into the country's fast-growing smartphone market starting next week with iPhone-inspired high-end models.
Bkav's Bphone has many iPhone-inspired features.
Bkav, a major provider of network security solutions, will roll out the country's first domestically developed upmarket smartphone on June 2.
The company has developed an operating system for the devices it has designed itself, while purchasing parts from 82 suppliers around the world, including Sharp and Qualcomm.
Bkav is seeking to gain a share in the market quickly through aggressive pricing. The retail price of the cheapest Bphone model will be about 40% lower than that of Apple's iPhone 6 Plus.
The Bphone has a high-resolution 5-inch screen, larger than the iPhone 6's 4.7-inch display but smaller than the iPhone 6 Plus' 5.5-inch screen.
The Bphone's screen matches the iPhone 6 Plus' Retina HD display in resolution. The Vietnamese competitor adopts a sleek, stylish design clearly inspired by Apple's best-selling smartphone.
The Bphone is equipped with a liquid crystal display provided by Sharp and a Qualcomm chip.
The products are assembled at a factory in Vietnam affiliated with Bkav.
The operating system developed by the company for the Bphone is armed with a program to detect viruses and spyware for high-level security.
Nguyen Tu Hoang, manager of Bkav's software section, claims it is the world's safest OS for smartphone.
The Bphone also features a high-speed data transmission capability based on Bluetooth short-distance wireless communications technology.
The company claims the Bphone can transmit data at a speed several hundred times faster than the standard models on the market.
The retail price of the cheapest 16-gigabyte Bphone is 9.99 million dong ($458), some 40% lower than the market prices of the iPhone 6 Plus.
Even the most expensive 128-gigabyte model is priced at 20.19 million dong, 12% less than Apple's hugely popular iPhone.
The Vietnamese firm has not announced any sales targets for its phone.
A Vietnamese telecom firm once sold low-priced smartphones in partnership with a Chinese manufacturer. But this is the first time a Vietnamese company has planned, designed and manufactured a smartphone.
Asian smartphone markets are awash with offerings from companies like China's Xiaomi, Taiwan's Asus and India's Micromax Informatics.
Bkav has decided it will have a better chance of establishing a presence in the highly competitive smartphone market by offering competitively priced high-end machines than by selling low-priced models.
In 2014, total smartphone shipments in Vietnam grew 57% from the previous year to 11.6 million units, according to market research firm IDC. The Vietnamese smartphone market has been expanding rapidly in recent years in tandem with the country's rising income levels.
The country's smartphone market is crowded with many manufacturers jockeying for larger shares.
Amid intense competition, Samsung Electronics saw its share of the market fall from 54% in 2012 to 26% in 2014.
Meanwhile, Apple and Nokia, owned by Microsoft, have lifted their market shares.
To impress Vietnam's consumers, who have a preference for products with a luxurious feel, Bkav has emulated Apple's approaches to product design and launch events.
Speaking at a press conference to unveil the Bphone, Bkav's outspoken CEO Nguyen Tu Quang described the launch as a historical event, saying it was a "special day" for Vietnam's technology sector.
Clad in a T-shirt and jeans, the company's founder used a lot of body language as well as flowery rhetoric in touting the products in an apparent attempt to mimic Steve Jobs' legendary presentation techniques.
Besides its name, the Bphone sports many other hallmarks of the iPhone, including its thin, sleek body and its screen size and resolution.
But Bkav copies Xiaomi's sales strategy. It sells the Bphone only online and makes extensive use of social networking services to promote sales through word-of-mouth.
Quang is a leading figure in the nation's information technology security community. He developed anti-virus software while studying at the Hanoi University of Science and Technology.
Quang started up a software development business after graduation. It is said that he identified the perpetrators when the websites of the U.S. and South Korean governments were hit by cyber attacks in 2009.
But he is also known for big talk. Hence his nickname, "Big Mouth Quang."
In the Bphone launch event, he frequently used such phrases as "the world's first" and "the world's No. 1."
Vietnam's IT sector used to be dominated by companies that offer offshore development services supported by the country's low labor costs.
But a growing number of Vietnamese IT players have been trying to rise above the status as a subcontractor. FPT, for instance, has launched an IT-based service to support agricultural businesses.
The IT sector is assuming increasing importance amid Vietnam's efforts to become a technology-driven economy.
iPhone rivals: Vietnam's Bkav launching high-end smartphones- Nikkei Asian Review
which sentence show I pretend to be Einstien? I am just a "copy cat ", I learn heard from parents & teachers, I respect them for they teaching me how to work & how to live. unlike you---smartest kid, you are born to know how to speak & work. by the way, question one more time: have you created a new language & creat a new walk style that no body creat before, smart kid?
