Ex-Grab Vietnam CEO new Apple country director

Nguyen Thai Hai Van, who resigned from her post as Grab Vietnam managing director in April, has taken the role of Apple country director in the Vietnamese market.

The Vietnamese national has updated her new post on her LinkedIn account, saying she had started this May. However, Apple Inc. has not made an official announcement.

Before joining Apple, Van had more than two years of experience at Grab Vietnam. Previously, Apple had placed the Vietnamese market under a regional director.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has just mentioned Vietnam in the group of emerging markets. The tech giant in July reported a 2% increase in revenue to $83 billion for the April-June quarter, a “near doubling” of revenues in the India market. Apple added it logged record revenues in both developed as well as emerging markets, with double digit growth in markets like Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Replying to an analyst's query on iPhone, Cook said: “It's the product and the innovation within the product that's driving it. The other key variables such as size of the installed base have been growing significantly.”

He added, “We also set a June quarter record for switchers with strong double-digit growth that is fueling the additional install base. We continue to execute across some significant geographies with low penetration of iPhones between Indonesia, Vietnam and India where we did quite well."

“iPhone tends to be the engine for those markets, particularly at the beginning of creating the market there for Apple products,” he was quoted by The Hindu, an Indian newspaper.

The Vietnamese market has not seen the Apple Store presence like in Singapore and Thailand. However, more and more Apple products have been taking up space at dedicated distribution chains like FPT Studio, TopZone, and Shopdunk Mono Store.

As for Grab Vietnam, the subsidiary of ride-hailing giant Grab has not officially announced its new CEO after Van quit this April.