What’s status of Vietnam’s software industry after two decades of development?

Vietnam’s software firms are developing steadily with stable revenue growth rate of 50 percent per annum.

One of the most important goals set in the Party Politburo’s Directive No 58 released in 2000 was developing IT, especially software, into an important key industry

Vietnam’s software firms only began learning ‘how to walk’ two decades ago, when China and India had already become the world’s software export centers. However, they just needed a short time to be added to the list of leading software exporters.

In 2000, FPT took the first steps to export software. But in 2014-2017, the largest Vietnamese IT group was recognized by IAOP (International Association of Outsourcing Professionals) as one of top 100 outsourcing service providers – The Global Outsourcing 100.

Gartner, when assessing the IT outsourcing services provided by the countries in Asia Pacific, put Vietnam among six leading destinations in technology transfer.

Regarding revenue, Vietnam’s software firms have gained steady growth of 50 percent per annum with revenue in 2017 increasing to VND58.5 trillion ($2.7 billion), or six times compared with 2007.

At Industry 4.0 Summit, an important event of the technology circle held recently, a series of Vietnamese products and software solutions utilizing 4.0 technologies were introduced.

A robotic arm developed by FPT caught special attention from visitors and scientists thanks to its capability of simulating human’s hands via an internet connection.

The robot arm is the result of FPT’s experiment connecting IoT’s MindSphere and AWS platforms and different devices that FPT is considering using for smarthomes.

FPT said that it plans to market the first version of solutions to support smarthomes.

FPT has also taken an important step in its path to become one of the world’s leading companies on providing digital transformation when taking over Intellinet, an US-based technology consultancy firm.

The combination of Intellinet's strength in consultancy and FPT's technology and business capabilities will provide more comprehensive and higher value-added technology services, especially digital conversion services.

With opportunities from the 4.0 industry revolution, Vietnam will be able to upgrade its position in the global software industry, but it needs more large-scale professional software corporations. 

According to Bill Ruh from GE, the software industry will become the most valuable industry, and large-scale professional software corporations will have the best opportunities for development.

With the issuance of Directive 58, which mentioned the development of software IPs, the Quang Trung Software Park (QTSC) opened, followed by a series of other IPs in Hanoi, Da Nang and Can Tho.