From instant noodles to EVs: Meet the man behind VinFast

VinFast recently signed an agreement with the state of Tamil Nadu to make an investment of up to $2 billion here for a facility for manufacturing electric vehicles (EVs) and another for battery manufacturing. The latest to look at India's emerging EV potential, the company is based out of Vietnam and was founded in 2017 by Pham Nhat Vuong who was also recently named as the new CEO.

Vuong is Vietnam's first billionaire who earned his initial riches as a property developer. While he is the founder and chairman of parent company Vingroup Joint Stock Company, his interest in VinFast has increased exponentially in recent times.

VinFast may have been established in 2017 but it only began manufacturing EVs in 2021. Interestingly, it has not yet made any profits. In fact, in the third quarter ending September 30 of last year, it had net los of around $623 million. But 55-year-old Vuong is extremely optimistic and has said that he expects VinFast to break even by the end of 2024.

Born in Hanoi, studied in Russia

Vuong was born in Vietnam's Hanoi and completed his schooling here before joining Hanoi University of Mining and Geology. While here, he was sent to Russia to further his studies at the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute.

It is reported that once he graduated, he decided to marry a woman - Phạm Thu Huong - that he had known since his school years. The couple then moved to Kharkiv in Ukraine. Here, he started a restaurant but would eventually enter the business of producing instant noodles. By 1993, he established Technocom which specialized in dehydrated culinary products. In 2009, Vuong sold this company to Nestle for $150 million and made his way back to Vietnam.

From property developer to EV king

Vuong tried his hand at property development and found success in Hanoi. And such was his meteoric rise though a conglomerate that by 2015, he was listed as the richest person in the country. He would then see potential in EVs and founded VinFast.

But VinFast has not tasted much success yet despite its massively aggressive plans of global expansion. While the main manufacturing hub is in Vietnam, the company is now looking at establishing facilities in Indonesia, Australia and India while having already entered the United States by shipping in its models. The going has been tough and in April of 2023, Vuong himself provided VinFast with a $1 billion grant.

What the future holds for VinFast remains unclear at the moment but backed by Vuong, the company has set out to challenge a long list of rivals, a task that won't be easy in the current climate of price cuts on EV models.