VinFast’s global expansion is increasingly being shaped far from the North American markets that once dominated its international ambitions. The Vietnamese electric-vehicle manufacturer is now preparing another major retail push in Indonesia, where a planned joint venture with Gowa Motor Group is targeting at least 30 additional VinFast showrooms and service centres.
The agreement arrives as VinFast builds a much larger ecosystem around local manufacturing, charging, servicing and vehicle sales in Southeast Asia. Indonesia already has more than 40 VinFast showrooms, while the automaker’s current Canadian locator lists five. The contrast illustrates how VinFast’s international strategy has evolved: Canada remains an active market, but the company is putting considerably more expansion energy into populous Asian markets where it believes EV adoption, local production and dealer partnerships can support faster growth.
The 30-Showroom Deal Is Part of a Much Bigger Indonesian Push
VinFast and Gowa Motor Group announced on August 17 that they had signed a strategic memorandum of understanding to establish a joint venture focused on expanding VinFast’s Indonesian dealership network. The proposed business is targeting at least 30 showrooms and service centres across the country. Gowa brings experience operating and distributing multiple automotive brands in passenger and commercial segments, giving VinFast a partner with existing knowledge of local dealership operations rather than requiring the Vietnamese company to construct every retail relationship itself.
The scale becomes clearer when the new agreement is viewed alongside VinFast’s existing plans. The company says it already operates more than 40 dealer showrooms in Indonesia and intends to add more than 150 additional showroom locations over the coming years. That means the Gowa partnership represents an important block of the planned network rather than the entire expansion. It is also important that the announcement involves an MOU and a target: those 30 locations are planned, rather than 30 completed stores opening simultaneously.
Indonesia Has Become One of VinFast’s Most Important Growth Markets
Indonesia offers something very different from the mature automotive markets VinFast initially pursued in North America and Europe. It is Southeast Asia’s largest economy, has a huge domestic transportation market and is actively encouraging development of an EV manufacturing industry. President Prabowo Subianto said in August that Indonesia wants mass production of domestically developed electric cars to begin no later than 2028. The government has also been preparing additional measures intended to stimulate electric-vehicle adoption.
The market is attractive, but it is hardly uncontested. Chinese manufacturers, including BYD, have been expanding aggressively, while established Japanese automakers retain enormous brand recognition and dealer coverage. VinFast itself said it ranked eighth among battery-electric brands in Indonesia at the end of the first quarter of 2026. That context helps explain why physical retail coverage matters. An unfamiliar automaker cannot rely only on advertising or an online ordering system. Test drives, financing discussions, maintenance access and visible local dealerships can all influence whether shoppers are willing to take a chance on a relatively young brand.
VinFast Is Backing Its Showrooms With Local Manufacturing
Retail expansion in Indonesia is being accompanied by a much more expensive commitment: local vehicle production. VinFast inaugurated its Subang, West Java, manufacturing plant in December 2025, only 17 months after construction began. The first phase involved more than US$300 million in investment and provides annual capacity of approximately 50,000 vehicles. VinFast says the 171-hectare complex can eventually be expanded to produce as many as 350,000 vehicles annually, with total investment potentially exceeding US$1 billion.
The factory initially concentrates on right-hand-drive versions of models including the VF 3, VF 5, VF 6 and VF 7. VinFast has also set localization targets, aiming to push locally sourced content above 40% during 2026, toward 60% by 2029 and 80% from 2030. For customers, those factory statistics may seem distant from the showroom floor, but local assembly can ultimately influence availability, logistics costs and the speed with which vehicles reach dealers. The combination of a factory and an expanding retail network also signals a deeper commitment than simply shipping vehicles into Indonesia from overseas.
Service Coverage Is Expanding Even Faster Than the Dealer Network
Selling an EV is only the beginning of the ownership relationship, particularly for a relatively new manufacturer. On August 12, VinFast said its Indonesian authorized service network had surpassed 100 outlets after agreements with additional automotive-service companies. Those locations are intended to handle services including routine maintenance, general repairs and body repairs while supplying genuine VinFast parts and accessories. The network extends beyond Greater Jakarta into other major Indonesian cities.
VinFast is also using charging and ownership programs to surround those service locations with a broader ecosystem. The company has extended complimentary charging for VinFast owners at the V-Green network in Indonesia through March 31, 2029. At the GIIAS 2026 auto show, it described a charging network containing thousands of charging points in the country and promoted programs involving battery subscriptions, resale-value support and financing. The approach acknowledges a basic challenge facing new EV brands: shoppers are not buying only range and horsepower. They are also evaluating where they can charge, who will fix the vehicle and what happens when something eventually goes wrong.
The Strategy Reflects VinFast’s Shift Toward Local Dealers
VinFast’s early international expansion leaned heavily on company-operated retail locations, a strategy resembling the direct-sales model associated with newer EV brands. That approach has changed. Company filings show VinFast has been moving toward dealer-led distribution because working with established local partners can expand geographic coverage while requiring less capital from the automaker itself. The company completed its transition toward franchise dealer distribution in the United States and Europe during the first half of 2025.
Indonesia fits that newer playbook particularly well. Instead of building every showroom, employing every retail worker and managing every local operation centrally, VinFast can combine its vehicles and branding with the infrastructure of groups such as Gowa Motor. It does not eliminate costs or execution risks, but it can spread those responsibilities across partners. For an automaker simultaneously spending on factories, charging infrastructure, products and customer incentives, that distinction matters. The 30-location proposal therefore represents more than extra dealership signs; it shows how VinFast intends to scale internationally without recreating a completely company-owned retail system in every market it enters.
Canada Shows How VinFast’s International Priorities Have Changed
Canada was once one of the most visible pieces of VinFast’s global expansion. The company opened its first Canadian store at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre in November 2022 and said eight retail and service centres would form the initial Canadian network. Its current Canadian store locator now lists five VinFast showrooms: Mississauga, Oakville, Langley, Saint-Laurent and Laval, supplemented by a network of independent service locations.
VinFast has not disappeared from Canada. Its Canadian site continues to market the VF 8 and VF 9, offer test drives and provide sales and service support. Yet management has clearly redirected much of its incremental growth effort toward Asia. In April 2025, founder Pham Nhat Vuong said VinFast was not planning to aggressively increase sales in the United States, Canada and European Union at that stage because of high logistics costs, while naming Indonesia, India and the Philippines as nearer-term priorities. That makes Indonesia’s latest showroom expansion a useful measure of how dramatically the company’s geographic emphasis has shifted.
Indonesia Is Getting a Broader Mix of VinFast Vehicles
VinFast is also giving Indonesian dealers more products to sell. At GIIAS 2026, the company displayed the VF 3, VF 6, VF 7 and seven-seat VF MPV 7 alongside models from its Green commercial-vehicle family. That range allows the company to reach beyond one narrow EV category, from compact urban transportation to family-oriented vehicles and models designed with commercial mobility in mind.
That diversification matters in a country where transportation needs vary significantly by household, business and city. A small VF 3 may suit dense urban driving in a way that a larger SUV does not, while an electric MPV offers a different proposition for families or transportation operators. Local manufacturing should eventually give the showroom network additional flexibility as well. The Subang facility was established to produce several of VinFast’s core right-hand-drive models and was also assigned new products for the Indonesian market. Instead of relying on a single imported flagship vehicle to establish the brand, VinFast is attempting to build enough product breadth to make each new dealership economically more useful.
Rapid Global Delivery Growth Raises the Stakes
VinFast enters the latest expansion with sharply higher vehicle volumes. The automaker reported preliminary global deliveries of 70,085 EVs during the second quarter of 2026, up 96% from the same quarter a year earlier. First-half global deliveries reached 128,662 vehicles, representing a 78% year-over-year increase. Models including the Limo Green and compact VF 3 accounted for a significant share of that growth.
Those figures are substantial, but they also highlight VinFast’s continuing dependence on its home market. Vietnam alone accounted for 115,916 preliminary vehicle deliveries during the first half of 2026, meaning international markets still represent the smaller part of the business. VinFast has set a target of at least 300,000 global EV deliveries for 2026 after delivering 196,919 in 2025. Reaching that scale sustainably will require countries such as Indonesia to become more than promising expansion stories. New factories and dealerships eventually need to translate into meaningful retail demand outside Vietnam, which makes the performance of the planned Indonesian network particularly important.
Expansion Must Eventually Translate Into Better Financial Performance
VinFast’s growth has come at a significant cost. First-quarter 2026 revenue climbed approximately 42% year over year to 23.11 trillion Vietnamese dong, or about US$877 million at the exchange rate cited by Reuters. At the same time, the company recorded a net loss of 28.11 trillion dong as spending continued on factories, production capacity and international growth. VinFast has relied heavily on financial support from founder Pham Nhat Vuong and parent Vingroup while trying to scale toward profitability.
That creates the central tension behind the showroom announcement. Thirty additional locations can improve visibility, service access and sales capacity, but rapid geographic expansion also requires working capital, inventory, marketing and trained personnel. Reuters reported in April, citing people familiar with the matter, that VinFast expected break-even to come after 2027 as expansion costs increased; the company itself pointed to analyst expectations that gross-profit break-even could become visible around 2027 to 2028. Indonesia could help make that economics work, but only if its growing infrastructure produces sustained vehicle demand rather than simply a larger footprint.
The New Showrooms Are a Test of VinFast’s Second Global Strategy
VinFast’s international story increasingly looks like two distinct chapters. The first emphasized fast entry into developed markets such as Canada, the United States and Europe. The second is more concentrated on Asian markets where VinFast can combine local assembly, local dealer groups, charging partnerships, financial programs, fleet operations and a wider selection of lower-priced vehicles.
The Gowa Motor agreement captures that second strategy in a single transaction. If completed as planned, the joint venture would add at least 30 sales-and-service locations to a country where VinFast already has a factory, more than 40 showrooms and more than 100 authorized service outlets. Yet the MOU is a starting point rather than proof of success. The important numbers will eventually be vehicles sold per showroom, repeat customers, service quality, factory utilization and international revenue. Canada demonstrated that opening stores can establish a brand presence. Indonesia will help determine whether VinFast’s newer, partner-driven model can turn a much larger physical network into a durable global automotive business.
