Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast Auto Ltd. plans to aggressively move into Southeast Asian markets, starting with Indonesia, and expects to eventually raise “a lot of capital” to fuel its global expansion plans, according to Chief Executive Officer Le Thi Thu Thuy.
The company expects to meet its target this year of selling 45,000 to 50,000 vehicles, she said in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Rishaad Salamat and Yvonne Man.
VinFast delivered 10,027 cars and 28,220 electric scooters in the third quarter, according to an exchange filing. The company has reported delivering a cumulative total of 28,727 vehicles. The carmaker has said it sold 7,100 vehicles to GSM Green and Smart Mobility Joint Stock Co., a Vietnamese taxi company in which founder Pham Nhat Vuong holds a 95% stake.
Southeast Asia has a lot of potential with governments looking to boost EV adoption with aggressive targets, she said.
“We intend to move into Asean aggressively, starting with Indonesia,” Thuy said.
VinFast will look to raise “a lot of capital” in the future for development and expansion plans, Thuy said. However, the company will rely on support from parent company Vingroup JSC and Vuong in the next 18 months, she added.
The company is constructing a $2 billion manufacturing complex in North Carolina and plans factories in Indonesia and India.
The automaker, which reported a wider loss in the third quarter, is on track to break even and reach profitability, Thuy said. Vuong said in May that the electric vehicle maker could be profitable after 2025 if operations are “smooth” and break even by the end of 2024.
VinFast went public in the US in August by merging with blank-check company Black Spade Acquisition Co. The company will release as many as 76 million shares to the market, though a portion will face trading limits, she said.
VinFast is “working on a lot of transactions” to increase its investor base, Thuy said.
Vuong doesn’t directly hold any stake in VinFast, but as of Sept. 21, Vingroup owned 50.8% of VinFast, Vietnam Investment Group, or VIG, held 32.9% of the company and Asian Star Trading & Investment Ltd. had a 12.9% stake, according an exchange filing. Each of these shareholders is majority owned by Vuong.
VinFast’s key shareholders VIG and Asian Star Trading & Investment Ltd. expect to sell 46 million VinFast shares, according to a previous company statement. Proceeds from the sale will be used to fund VinFast’s expansion plans, it said.
--With assistance from Anand Menon, Rishaad Salamat, Yvonne Man and Joanne Wong.
(Updates the story with car deliveries in the third paragraph and new information beginning in the seventh paragraph.)