Will Bphone 2 be marketed this year?

• Nokia 3310, beloved and 'indestructible' mobile phone, 'to be reborn'
• Huawei under fire over phone chips as tight supply bites
• Apple sued over broken Iphones by Australia after "Error 53" controversy

Photo: Thegioididong

The second anniversary of the first made-in-Vietnam luxury smartphone will come in several days. However, no one knows when BPhone 2 will be launched.

The luxury model has been covered with a dark shadow in the last two years. People doubt that a Vietnamese firm can make a high-technology product.

The CEO of BKAV, Nguyen Tu Quang, launched a lively media campaign to advertise BPhone. He affirmed BPhone would be ‘one of the most beautifully designed smartphone models in the world’.

BPhone was brought into life in an impressive way, but the smartphone which was hoped to be ‘Vietnamese technological pride’ did not have an impressive performance.Those who use the services of BKAV,  the manufacturer, can buy BPhone at avprice which is just a half of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.

However, despite the attractive preferences, no active sign about the sales of the product has been reported.

BKAV has decided to recall BPhone and said it would launch the next version of the product into the market soon.

No one knows why BKAV decided to recall old model before marketing the new model instead of letting both of them exist at the same time.

In principle, manufacturers only recall their products if they discover problems with the products. BKAV has done this even though no flaws were reported in the production.

A source said this is because the firm wants to pave the way for the new version – BPhone2.

A year ago, the public heard about the launch of the next generation of BPhone. The information about the configuration of the product even appeared on technology forums. However, BPhone 2 still has not been launched. 

An analyst said that the competition in the market has become stiff and technology firms launch new models into the market every year.

BKAV did not succeed with BPhone. Despite advertisement campaigns and claims that it would in no way be inferior to other high-end smartphones, sales went very slowly. 

This was attributed to the Vietnamese habit of choosing foreign made products instead of Vietnamese. 

However, Nguyen Duong, former director of SingTel Vietnam, said that BPhone was unsuccessful because of the large ‘expectation gap’, i.e. the large gap between  expected and real quality.