Vietnamese Billionaire Owner of Green SM Taxi
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, HANOI – From the instant noodle business in Ukraine to building a business empire worth billions of US dollars, Pham Nhat Vuong has become Vietnam’s richest person. Now, the conglomerate owner of Vingroup is expanding his influence through the electric vehicle business and Green SM taxi services.
The group’s main units include the electric vehicle manufacturer VinFast, the property developer Vinhomes, and the Vinpearl hotel network. VinFast has become Vietnam’s largest EV producer based on market share, with factories abroad in India and Indonesia.
In 2023, he took VinFast public on the stock exchange through a SPAC listing on Nasdaq. Vinpearl was listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange in May 2025.
The V-Green charging station operator was separated from VinFast in 2024, and it will invest more than $400 million over the next two years to build charging infrastructure across the country.
At the end of 2025, VinFast invested $1 billion to increase EV production capacity in Indonesia amid the EV boom in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
With its latest investment, the company plans to increase the capacity of its Subang factory, located about 120 kilometres southeast of Jakarta, sevenfold to 350,000 EVs per year when fully operational, the New York-listed company said in a statement.
“With the Subang factory now officially operational, VinFast has completed one of the most comprehensive and integrated electric vehicle ecosystems in Indonesia, reaffirming our commitment to long-term partnerships and creating shared value with this country,” said VinFast Asia CEO Pham Sanh Chau in a statement reported by Forbes.
VinFast has invested $300 million in the 171-hectare factory, which was completed just 17 months after the groundbreaking. With this new investment, the company also plans to increase the local content for cars produced at the factory to 80 per cent starting in 2030, while creating up to 15,000 jobs at full capacity. In addition to current EV models, the factory will also assemble electric motorcycles and commercial electric MPVs to be launched in 2026.