Category: Electronics

Retail News Asia is committed to providing both local and global retailers with the latest Electronics news throughout the Asian market. This on a daily base.

Samsung allegedly fell victim to a data breach

There has been a new security breach in the tech industry. This time, the victim was reportedly Samsung Electronics. The hackers taking responsibility for the data breach are from the Lapsus$ hacking group. Lapsus$ has leaked around 190GB of what it claims to be confidential data from Samsung, which includes source code and biometric unlocking algorithms.

As proof of the data breach, Lapsus$ has also provided a screenshot of C/C++ code directives, alleging that they came from Samsung. In a description of the 190GB of stolen data the hacking group teased before the big leak, they wrote that these 190GB contain “confidential Samsung source code” and listed exactly what the hacking group managed to steal from Samsung.

With its hack, Lapsus$ got its hands on the source code for every Trusted Applet (TA) installed in Samsung’s TrustZone. Samsung TrustZone is a secure environment utilized for operations such as hardware cryptography, binary encryption, and access control.

Lapsus$ also managed to steal algorithms for all biometric unlock operations, the source code used for booting all recent Samsung devices, and confidential source code allegedly originating from Qualcomm. With its attack, Lapsus$ also stole the source code for Samsung’s activation servers, аs well as that used for authorizing and authenticating Samsung accounts, including APIs and services.

Although the information above is what Lapsus$ listed as the stolen data, it is unknown if Lapsus$ stole additional secret information from Samsung. What is known, however, is that the hacking group has split the leaked data into three compressed files and made it available for download via a torrent.

As for a comment from Samsung about the data breach, Samsung officials told the media outlet that they ‘are now assessing the situation.’

March 8, 2022
HTC shares details about first flagship phone in more than 3 years

Around a decade back, HTC was one of the biggest smartphone makers in the world but has almost sunk into oblivion in recent times. The company never announced a retreat from the market, and even though it scaled back operations after selling a chunk of its business to Google in 2018, it still quietly sells affordable phones in select markets. The Taiwanese manufacturer has now revealed plans to release a flagship smartphone in April.

Vice President of HTC’s Asia-Pacific Region, Charles Huang said during the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) that the company will introduce a high-end smartphone next month.

The company last released a flagship smartphone, the Exodus 1, in 2018. It was a blockchain-focused handset and was powered by Qualcomm’s premium Snapdragon 845 chip. HTC, which was the first to make both an Android device and a Windows Mobile handset, has been in the red since 2015 and has shifted focus to virtual reality headsets and accessories.

During MWC, the company announced Viverse, which is its version of the metaverse and will make use of the in-house Vive VR headsets. It comes as no surprise that HTC is planning on integrating some metaverse features into the phone. It looks like the company wants to target consumers who would like to use their phone for augmented reality and virtual reality applications.

Other details are still under wraps, but more information will likely be coming soon. Whether it will help HTC turn things around and give a tough time to the best phones of 2022 remains to be seen.

March 3, 2022

The next Apple event is set for March 8, and the first 5G iPhone SE is expected

It’s finally happening, ladies and gents, and although invitations didn’t go out quite as early as some may have expected, the next Apple event is indeed taking place when Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman predicted it would almost a month ago.

If you like affordable iPhones and mid-sized iPads with non-Pro specifications, you might want to circle March 8 in your calendars… or simply bookmark and set a reminder for the YouTube live stream embedded below.

Naturally, this (not so) mysterious “special Apple Event” will be broadcast in real-time starting at 10 a.m. PST next Tuesday, allowing the entire world to tune in and check out the first live demonstrations of the 5G-enabled iPhone SE 3 and fifth-gen iPad Air.

If you’re the least bit familiar with how the Cupertino-based tech giant operates ahead of these shindigs, you won’t be shocked to hear that those two devices haven’t been confirmed, teased at, or alluded to in any official capacity yet.

You should also not expect any revealing or exciting buzz-building material between today and March 8. Then again, there’s certainly plenty of (unofficial) buzz surrounding the iPhone SE (2022) anyway. This has been long and widely expected to add 5G speeds to an already hugely popular budget-friendly equation including a lot of raw power and a terribly outdated design.

Unfortunately, that latter part is pretty much etched in stone after the latest reports from a number of trustworthy sources, insiders, and publications no matter how badly you want to believe in the accuracy of those sketchy renders leaked back in January.

Instead of going down the notch path this year, it looks like Apple will opt to keep the iPhone 8 memory alive with yet another set of massive bezels surrounding a tiny (by 2022 standards) 4.7-inch screen. The good news is that might allow the company to also keep the $399 base price unchanged despite the aforementioned 5G upgrade and a predictable but more than welcome bump from A13 Bionic to A15 Bionic “peek performance.”

Curiously enough, Apple’s next big tablet has yet to show its face (or rear, or sides) in any renders or prematurely revealed real-life photographs. That can only mean one thing, and it’s actually the thing that also explains the absence of (legit) visual iPhone SE 3 leaks.

That’s right, we fully expect the iPad Air (2022) to look virtually identical to its 2020 predecessor on the outside while hiding a hot new Apple A15 Bionic chip and (optional) 5G modem under its undoubtedly premium aluminum hood.

Obviously, the 5G-capable fifth-gen iPad Air won’t come cheap, as suggested by the $649 and up iPad mini (2021) with next-gen cellular connectivity on deck. That thing is 150 bucks costlier than its entry-level Wi-Fi-only counterpart, which probably means the first-ever 5G iPad Air will also start at $150 more than a non-cellular-enabled variant likely to fetch around $600.

At $750 or so, the 5G iPad Air 5 would be just 50 bucks pricier than a Wi-Fi-only Galaxy Tab S8, which sounds like a battle Samsung can never in a million years win. Of course, the 10.9-inch iPad Air (2022) is likely to start at 64 rather than 128 gigs of internal storage space, with no microSD card slot in tow… or complimentary stylus.

Like the sixth-gen 8.3-inch iPad mini, this bad boy could rock a 12MP front-facing camera with Center Stage functionality, and like its 10.9-inch forerunner, the fifth-gen iPad Air will probably rely on a top-mounted fingerprint scanner for biometric recognition instead of joining the iPad Pro (2021) duo in the hip Face ID club.

March 3, 2022

Samsung Electronics CEO accepts unions’ request for talks

The past few weeks have been a rather turbulent time for Samsung Electronics, and it had nothing to do with the Galaxy S22 series. The company has been heading towards its potential first-ever strike, with a workers’ union coming together to fight against unfairly low wages—but Samsung has already taken the first move towards remedying the situation.

The workers’ union at Samsung had submitted a demand for wage renegotiations which was to be answered by Friday at the latest, to avoid a full-blown strike. The union was already legally authorized to go on strike, but on Friday, the company committed to an official meeting for wage negotiations to be held in early March.

The employees involved in the union had been growing increasingly dissatisfied at the company’s refusal to provide significant wage increases or bonuses after the company’s performance in 2021. Although Samsung reportedly fell short of its 2021 production goals, this was owed to the devastation of the pandemic and chip shortages, rather than any drop in employee performance.

Earlier this month, the union requested that the workers be granted a ten-million-won (roughly $8,400) annual salary increase, as well as performance-based bonuses calculated at 25% of the year’s operating profit.

The company originally blatantly rejected the demand, but thanks to Samsung’s response on Friday, however, a full strike may be avoided if the two parties come to a mutually satisfactory agreement.

The organizers of the union stated on Friday that “We received an official reply from the management to our request for a dialogue with the company’s chief executives. We are delighted that the management has changed its stance.”Because of the size of the company, Samsung still hasn’t been decided which CEO will be chosen to participate in the discussion. The upcoming CEO election may complicate the factors around the decision, as the election will take place on March 16, where President Kyung Kye-hyun will be appointed as a new co-CEO.

February 28, 2022

Apple VR headset may come with Micro LED display, M1 chip

Apple’s VR headset’s due date at the end of the year is inching ever closer, and the rumors surrounding the new device have been flowing in at a faster rate than usual. A mysterious new tip has made its way to us today, supposedly revealing details about the headset’s display and processing chip.

The leak comes from Korean tech site ET News, and claims it has insider info that Apple is developing a Micro OLED chip for the device with TSMC:

The parts industry expects Apple to release virtual reality (VR) headset terminal for the metaverse market as early as this year. It was understood that the performance test for VR headset production has been recently completed. Apple VR devices are equipped with micro-organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays.

Apple cooperated with Taiwan’s TSMC with developing OLED displays for VR devices. Micro OLED displays do not require color filters since OLEDs are deposited directly on the chip wafer. Micro OLED is smaller, thinner, and more efficient.

The same article also states that Apple is equipping the VR headset with an M1 chip, which also powers Apple’s latest iPads and MacBooks.

Although the ET News leak has made its way into the tech mainstream media, it wouldn’t be too fast to put much stock in it. It further claims that Apple will be using the iPhone’s iOS operating system for the headset, despite an earlier fairly credible GitHub code leak showing clear references to a separate “Reality OS” operating system that the company is developing.

The M1 chipset claim is slightly more credible, as we know that the device has already been tested with the processor Apple designed to replace Intel components on certain Mac models. In power, the M1 processor is comparable to the 5nm-node A14 Bionic chip that powers the iPhone 12 series but is complete with all of 16 billion transistors for maximum compact power and efficiency.

February 25, 2022

Samsung execs accused of doctoring 5nm chip yield results to hide stolen funds

On the heels of a report claiming that Qualcomm is so upset about the low 35% yield achieved by Samsung Foundry’s 4nm process node that it dumped Sammy for TSMC, another alarming report has surfaced. Samsung is investigating the possibility that fraud occurred inside the company’s foundry business.

Unnamed Samsung Foundry executives are being accused in the Korean media of fabricating the yield rate data achieved by Samsung Foundry for its 4nm and 5nm process node. This data, expressed as a percentage, shows how many chips in a wafer meet quality testing standards. Yesterday’s report indicated that the yield for Samsung Foundry’s 4nm process node was a poor 35% compared to the 70% yield achieved by rival TSMC.

The poor yield was mentioned in a report as the reason why Qualcomm supposedly replaced Samsung Foundry with TSMC for the production of next year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Application Processor. The new report claims that the 4nm and 5nm yields were faked by Samsung Foundry executives to make it seem that everything was going well with the division.

Samsung officials are trying to track down funds that were supposed to be used to improve the yield at Samsung Foundry. Reports of the poor yields and missing funds at Samsung Foundry come at a poor time for Samsung since it and TSMC are the only two foundries in the world able of churning out chips at a process node of under 5nm. Both are working hard to become the first foundry able to ship 3nm components.

TSMC already has plenty of business as its customer list includes heavyweights such as Apple, MediaTek, Nvidia, and more. TSMC is believed to be running into yield problems of its own at the 3nm process node although volume production is only supposed to be reached later this year.

The lower the process node, the higher the number of transistors that can fit in a chip. That is key to the performance of the component since the more transistors used, the more powerful and energy-efficient a chip is.

A Samsung official familiar with the situation said in a quote translated by Machine Learning, “Since the delivered quantities is struggled to meet the recent foundry order volume, we have doubts about the yield of the non-memory process, which has was known to be achieved.”

The official added, “The management consulting investigates the claims on the yield of a semiconductor foundry by former and current DS division executives. The consulting will determine whether the claims are false.”

If this story sounds strange and bizarre, that’s because it is. Frankly, we can’t think of a story that is similar to this one. And that means that until more official statements are issued by Samsung or even the police in Korea, we should take this report with a grain of salt.

Samsung’s foundry business set a company record for revenue during the fourth quarter of 2021. On a sequential basis, profits declined from the third quarter of last year as Samsung had to spend more money to ramp up advanced process nodes such as 4nm and 3nm. Whether some of that money has to do with the funds allegedly missing is not clear.

The increase in revenue to a record high in the foundry business came from increased sales to HPC (High Performance Computing) customers. For the current quarter, the first quarter of 2022, Samsung said that its foundry would “focus on improving its advanced process yield to improve its supply stability. Also, the Company will continue technical leadership through mass production of the 1st generation GAA process in the first half of 2022.”

GAA, or Gate All Around, is a transistor structure associated with Samsung’s 3nm process node. It replaces (for Samsung, anyway) the FinFET structure used presently.

Samsung Foundry says that the chip market will remain “tight” as 5G penetrates more market, and demand from High Performance Computing firms remains solid. Additionally, the need for manufacturers to have more chips than needed just in case there is a supply shock from an external event, and outsourcing demand from integrated device manufacturers (ISDMs) who design and build their own chips (like Intel) will keep the assembly lines humming in 2022.

For this year, Samsung expects supply to remain tight due to rising penetration of 5G, solid HPC demand, growing out-sourcing from IDM players and continued needs for securing safety inventory. The Company aims to exceed market growth by expanding capacity at advanced nodes, adjusting prices and adding new customers.

February 24, 2022

Qualcomm’s new smartwatch chips will reportedly be built using 4nm process node

Qualcomm is looking to take its Snapdragon Wear chipset to a higher level while replacing the current Wear 4100 platform. Built on the 4nm process node, the Snapdragon Wear 5100 and 5100+ are both expected to improve the performance of Google’s wearable operating system thanks to the manufacturing process being used.

While Samsung Foundry will reportedly build the chips (it should be noted that Samsung manufacturers the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC used on most flagship Android devices), this doesn’t mean that they will be used on any Samsung timepiece. Being built on the 4nm process node, the Snapdragon Wear 5100 and 5100+ should be more energy-efficient than the current 4100 chip which is built on the 12nm process node (and compared to the 28nm process node used on the Snapdragon Wear 3100).

The difference between the 5100 and the 5100+ is in the packaging with the former separating the SoC and the PMIC (power management integrated circuits). The latter is known as a Molded Embedded Package (MEP) where everything is packaged together. The more powerful of the two chips features an “ultra low power deep sleep mode” that will allow for Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connectivity even when employed.

The “Plus” chip also will include technology from ARM that supports heart rate and fall detection and will deliver improved haptics. Both variants include four Cortex-A53 cores running at a clock speed of 1.7GHz. In addition, both chips will feature the Adreno 702 GPU running at 700MHz.

The Snapdragon Wear 5100 and 5100+ will both support up to 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM and eMMC 5.1 storage. This happens to be the same core as the Wear 4100+ although it would seem that Qualcomm is counting on the reduced process node to cover some of the improvements found in the newer chips.

The ISP will support dual cameras in the 13MP and 16MP range and the thought is that watches will be used for video conference calls in the future. The 5100 line of Snapdragon chips can be used not just to power a Wear OS device, but also can drive an Android device as well.

The 5100+ will include the QCC5100 co-processor which adds a 22nm Cortex-M55 ultra-low-power processor to help reduce the consumption of battery power. Speaking of which, it seems that the move to use a 4nm process node to build the two variants is a recent change from the 5nm that Samsung was going to use to produce the silicon.

There is no word when the chips will be available for use on consumer devices. It doesn’t appear that the components will be available to be used on the rumored Google Pixel Watch. The rumor mill has worked overtime to produce renders of what is supposedly the Pixel Watch with a circular watch face. The speculation calls for the timepiece to be unveiled in May, possibly during the Google I/O Developer Conference.

The device will reportedly be equipped with the capability to allow Google Assistant to process speech on-device. Not only can this speed up the time it takes for the digital helper to respond to queries, it also could allow users to speak to the Assistant even when offline.

Tipster Max Weinbach disseminated a tweet a few months back that said the Pixel Watch will be powered by a Samsung Exynos chipset similar to the 5nm Exynos W920. The latter is the silicon used with the Galaxy Watch 4 line, but it will carry the Tensor name. That is the name used by Google for the AI-focused SoC that debuted on the Pixel 6 series.

Google might want to keep the Tensor branding on the chips that power its devices in order to give the public a certain expectation about the AI features that will be available on its products and to present a certain aura of premium quality.

February 23, 2022

The Apple Glasses AR/VR headset completes engineering tests for a possible 2022 launch

According to sources from the Taiwanese supply chain, Apple has already finished the last of the Engineering Validation Tests (EVT2) of its future Glass AR headset that is expected to be launched this year.

Next in line for the upcoming virtual reality wearable with a fruit logo is reportedly the design validation test (DVT) stage which, if passed successfully, could mean an Apple Glasses release in 2022, despite that recently Mark Gurman, a Bloomberg analyst, predicted that the headgear won’t be landing before 2023 rolls in.

With Apple Glasses price rumored to be around $3000 for a set of two 8K resolution displays and the necessary Apple Silicon chips needed to process all the visual information in a standalone manner that doesn’t need to be hooked up to a computer.

Industry insiders out of Korea have tipped that LG Innotek, the company that supplied the cameras for LG’s Android handsets of yesteryear, will be supplying the 3D time of flight (ToF) module that Apple plans to use for their virtual reality headset.

According to another storied Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, the Apple Glasses headset specs will include Wi-Fi 6E connectivity in order to provide the huge bandwidth needed to stream all these bits and bytes it will be generating.

That’s also not hard to believe, given that there already exists virtual reality gear with Wi-Fi 6 connectivity out there, in the form of Facebook’s Oculus Quest, which allows it to stream at up to 120Hz refresh rates.

Mr Kuo also claims that three major companies – Apple, Meta, and Sony – will have high-end mixed reality headgear with Wi-Fi 6/6E chips inside, perhaps having in mind the PlayStation VR2 model that is expected to land this year as well.

If the tentatively named Apple Glasses mixed reality headset is released in 2022, it may have to battle against Facebook (aka Meta)’s own such gear that is rumored to be launched this year as well. The Apple headset will also be “pricey,” according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his PowerOn Apple-themed newsletter edition, and that price is said to be in the realm of $2999.

Still, Apple has been talking about the possibilities that mixed reality offers for so long ago, adapting its products and programming SDK packages for a major AR/VR push, that a dedicated augmented reality headset could very well be a gamechanger for the industry, if and when it falls down from that rumored $3000 Apple Glasses price tag.

February 23, 2022

Samsung invests another $920 mln in northern plant

Samsung has received permission to invest an additional $920 million in its electronic components plant in the northern province of Thai Nguyen.

The license, awarded to the South Korean’s electronics giant’s Samsung Electro-Mechanics unit, will increase its total registered investment in the province by 68 percent to $2.27 billion.

Samsung, Vietnam’s biggest foreign direct investor, first invested $1.3 billion in the electro-mechanics unit in 2013. The unit produces mainboards and other electronics components.

As of last year, Samsung had invested $18 billion in Vietnam. It has six plants in the country and is building a new research and development center in Hanoi.

February 18, 2022

Apple wins lawsuit оver copyright infringement on multiracial emojis

It’s safe to say that Apple can now put another lawsuit win under its belt. The Cupertino company just won a copyright lawsuit launched by Cub Club Investment (CCI), the developer of the iDiversicons app, which enables you to use racially diverse emojis. CCI accused Apple of copying its app idea and emojis and infringing on its intellectual property rights.

Before making his decision, Vince Chhabria, the lawsuit judge, compared Apple’s emojis with CCI’s emojis and concluded that, overall, the emojis weren’t similar enough for Apple to infringe. Chhabria also stated, “Copyright law does not forbid all copying. To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff must allege that the defendant copied enough of the protected expression … to establish unlawful appropriation.”

According to Vince Chhabria, CCI didn’t manage to prove that Apple had infringed on anything that was under copyright protection; therefore, Apple had only copied CCI’s idea, and ideas are not subject to copyright law.

In the document about his decision, Chhabria said, “There aren’t many ways that someone could implement this idea. After all, there are only so many ways to draw a thumbs up.” In this regard, Chhabria stated that CCI’s emojis are ‘entitled to only thin copyright protection against virtually identical copying.’

In the lawsuit document, Cub Club shared that the iDiversicons app was founded in 2013 by CCI CEO Katrina Parrott. According to Parrott, the app was the first in the world to offer emojis with diverse skin tones. CCI also said that in 2014, Parrott discussed a possible partnership with Apple, but Apple declined the partnership and instead created its own diverse skin-tone emojis.

February 18, 2022

Samsung invests another $920 mln in northern plant

Samsung has received permission to invest an additional $920 million in its electronic components plant in the northern province of Thai Nguyen.

The license, awarded to the South Korean’s electronics giant’s Samsung Electro-Mechanics unit, will increase its total registered investment in the province by 68 percent to $2.27 billion.

Samsung, Vietnam’s biggest foreign direct investor, first invested $1.3 billion in the electro-mechanics unit in 2013. The unit produces main boards and other electronics components.

As of last year, Samsung had invested $18 billion in Vietnam. It has six plants in the country and is building a new research and development center in Hanoi.

February 17, 2022

Designer shares his concept of a foldable “iPhone Air” sporting powerful M1 chip

Samsung is the early leader in the foldable market with its Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip handsets. While Apple has yet to officially throw its hat in the ring, TF International’s highly accurate analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, says that a foldable iPhone is expected to be released no sooner than 2023 and that it will be of the Flip variety which means it will be a clamshell design similar to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip.

The latest iPhone Flip concept design comes from designer Antonia De Rosa who calls the device the iPhone Air. De Rosa sees a powerful device powered by the 5nm Apple M1 chip carrying 16 billion transistors. That is one billion more than the amount found on the A15 Bionic chip that is found under the hood of the iPhone 13 series.

The M1 chip powers the latest iPad Pro series and was developed by Apple to replace the Intel processors that drive some Mac computers.

The iPhone Air mockup uses chrome hinges and similar to the renders that we’ve seen for the iPhone 14, the rear camera array is flush with the back panel. While Apple has been reportedly testing out different designs of a foldable iPhone, it also is keeping its eyes on the consumer reaction to the foldable being sold by rival Samsung.

If you examine the iPhone Air in the video, you’ll notice that the phone is portless. This is a design that former Apple design chief Jony Ive had been striving for but could not achieve before his departure from Cupertino.

And instead of the notch, if we can direct your attention to the display, you’ll see that the iconic and still controversial notch is replaced with a pill-shaped cutout at the top center of the screen. The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will reportedly do away with the notch and replace it with both a hole-punch cutout and a lozenge “pill shaped” opening.

February 15, 2022

iPhone doubles Vietnam market share

iPhone’s market share in Vietnam increased from 4 percent in 2020 to 9 percent last year, making it the fifth-largest smartphone seller.

The growth of 119 percent was the highest for any brand, Counterpoint Research said in a report.

Apple was behind Samsung (34 percent), OPPO (19 percent), Xiaomi (13 percent), and vivo (11 percent).

Strong growth in Apple products was seen in the last quarter of the year, with sales doubling year-on-year, the report said.

This was when the company launched iPhone 13.

Last year, taking advantage of the rising demand, several stores were set up to exclusively sell Apple products like FPT’s F.Studio, TopZone and Lazada Apple Flagship Stores.

Counterpoint analyst Ivan Lam said: “Apple has always had a place in Vietnamese consumers’ hearts. Last year it expanded its distribution campaign in Vietnam.”

The overall smartphone market grew by 7 percent last year, the report said.

February 15, 2022

iPhone doubles Vietnam market share

iPhone’s market share in Vietnam increased from 4 percent in 2020 to 9 percent last year, making it the fifth-largest smartphone seller.

The growth of 119 percent was the highest for any brand, Counterpoint Research said in a report.

Apple was behind Samsung (34 percent), OPPO (19 percent), Xiaomi (13 percent), and vivo (11 percent).

Strong growth in Apple products was seen in the last quarter of the year, with sales doubling year on year, the report said.

This was when the company launched iPhone 13.

Last year, taking advantage of the rising demand, several stores were set up to exclusively sell Apple products like FPT’s F.Studio, TopZone, and Lazada Apple Flagship Stores.

Counterpoint analyst Ivan Lam said: “Apple has always had a place in Vietnamese consumers’ hearts. Last year it expanded its distribution campaign in Vietnam.”

The overall smartphone market grew by 7 percent last year, the report said.

February 14, 2022

Over 90 pct of Samsung, Intel workers return to work after Tet

Major factories in Ho Chi Minh City reported over 90 percent of employees returning to work after the nine-day Tet holiday, abating employer concerns of a labor shortage.

Some factories with high return rates are Samsung electronics manufacturer HCMC CE Complex (95 percent) and motor parts maker Nidec Sankyo (94 percent). Other manufacturers like Intel and Jabil also reported a return rate of over 90 percent.

Eight factories in Saigon Hi-tech Park of Thu Duc City, which utilize over 45,000 employees, reported between 80 percent and 95 percent of workers returning to work Tuesday after the annual Lunar New Year’s holiday Tet, according to park data.

Over 17 industrial zones and manufacturing areas where 273,000 employees work posted a return of 82 percent.

The high return rate is considered a relief to HCMC employers who, before the holiday, had expected a shortage of workers after Tet as many preferred to stay in their hometown.

Tet, Vietnam’s biggest national holiday, is a time when workers of large industrial parks leave en masse for their hometowns for family renuions.

Some factories of Vinatex, one of the biggest garment companies in Vietnam, posted a worker return rate of 100 percent as the company started off the year three days before the holiday ended to meet the surge in order numbers.

Pou Yuen, footwear maker and biggest employer in HCMC, is expected to see its return ratio rising from 64 percent Monday to 90 percent Wednesday.

February 9, 2022