Mr. Truong Gia Binh: FPT wants to buy all companies related to car design.

FPT aims for M&A to speed up the implementation of large contracts and is especially interested in companies in the automobile industry.

Mr. Truong Gia Binh, Chairman of FPT Board of Directors, at the 2024 annual meeting, held on the afternoon of April 10. Photo: FPT

This afternoon, FPT Corporation held its 2024 annual shareholders' meeting. At the end of last year, FPT achieved $1 billion in IT service revenue from foreign markets. Thanks to that, the company's core areas such as chips, semiconductors, automotive, and AI became the topics that shareholders were most interested in.

According to the plan presented to shareholders, this year, the group will improve its capacity in the Automotive sector, with the goal of 50% growth and reaching a revenue of 1 billion USD by 2030. FPT also expands its services in the semiconductor industry, especially personnel training, AI, Cloud, Cybersecurity services and new infrastructure services.

To accelerate the implementation of goals, M&A continues to be a direction of interest. "FPT wants to buy all companies that make cars, especially those related to car design," Mr. Truong Gia Binh, Chairman of FPT's Board of Directors, answered shareholders' questions about this year's M&A plan.

Why cars? According to FPT Chairman, the world's auto industry is currently "very confused". Traditional car manufacturers are too mechanical, while electric car manufacturers are "too soft". Car manufacturers cannot apply these models, they need someone who knows software and understands the auto industry.

"This is really rare and an opportunity at the moment. They need people who understand cars, understand software and know security," said Mr. Binh, adding that FPT is "lucky to have the ability", with 4,000 employees working in this field. But to go faster, M&A is a solution.

In addition, another advantage of FPT is the ability to access the Japanese market, a difficult M&A market for foreign companies.

One of FPT's early successes this year was the M&A with Next Advanced Communications (NAC), a company in Japan - a country where businesses are very limited in selling capital to foreign companies.

"The head of NAC has followed FPT from small activities, from football tournaments, arts, to Hope school activities. And he chose FPT because it has the closest mindset," Mr. Binh said, adding that corporate culture could be the key to help FPT get closer to businesses in the land of the rising sun.

According to Mr. Pham Minh Tuan, Deputy General Director of FPT, the M&A strategy will be implemented with the ambition of "not only expanding but also going deeper", to shorten the time to complete large contracts. Previously, the group's M&A was mainly in the US market, but earlier this year it was implemented in Japan. Korea, Singapore, and Europe will be the markets that FPT will target in the future.

Last year, FPT made a series of M&A deals, cooperating with major partners. In just one year, FPT made 4 M&A deals and invested in technology companies in the US and France such as Intertec International, Cardinal Peak, AOSIS, and Landing AI.

This year, FPT plans to have revenue of 61,850 billion and pre-tax profit of 10,875 billion, an increase of about 18% compared to 2023. If the target is achieved, 2024 will mark a record high profit for the group and the 7th consecutive year of growth.

General Director Nguyen Van Khoa said that FPT can grow steadily and continuously because it "focuses on people, technology and discipline". He affirmed that with the achievement of the milestone of 1 billion USD in revenue from IT services in foreign markets, the figure of 5 - 10 billion USD is "within reach".

In this year's revenue structure, the technology sector is expected to bring in more than VND31,400 billion, an increase of more than 21%. The two other sectors, Telecommunications andEducation and Investment, are targeting revenue growth of 11% to VND17,600 billion and 14% to VND6,100 billion, respectively.

FPT has determined that the 2024 - 2026 period will focus on accelerating digital transformation, promoting green transformation and starting smart transformation. In addition to the orientation with the automotive, AI, cloud, and cybersecurity sectors, FPT will expand its services in the semiconductor chip industry, expand chip design models and participate in testing services. The goal by 2030 is for the group to train 10,000 engineers and specialists in the semiconductor industry.

With an order for 70 million chips by 2025, Deputy General Director Nguyen The Phuong said FPT makes simple chips so the price is not high.

"We do the design, then OEM for Taiwanese and Japanese factories to produce. The order of 70 million chips is expected to bring in about 10 million USD in revenue, the profit margin is determined to be modest because it is in the investment phase," said Mr. Phuong.

Minh Son

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