VinFast has quietly pulled off something that would have sounded far-fetched a few years ago: in its home market, the Vietnamese upstart has raced past global giants like Hyundai and Kia on a key electric-vehicle benchmark. The company is not just selling more EVs, it is reshaping what the regional market looks like and forcing established brands to rethink how they compete in Southeast Asia.
That shift is not about hype or concept cars, it is about hard numbers, crowded streets, and a customer base that is suddenly choosing local badges over long-dominant imports. The story of how VinFast got here, and what it means for the next phase of the EV race, is a lot more interesting than a simple sales chart.
From national newcomer to 100,000-EV heavyweight
The clearest sign that VinFast has broken into the big leagues is the speed at which it has scaled. In just three quarters, the company crossed the landmark of selling over 100,000 electric vehicles, a figure that would be impressive for any young brand, let alone one operating in a market that only recently embraced EVs in a serious way. That volume has helped turn Vietnam into Southeast Asia’s 2nd largest EV market, a status that would have been hard to imagine before VinFast started pushing battery-powered cars into the mainstream.
Inside Vietnam, the company has framed this surge as a national milestone as much as a corporate one. In a separate update, VinFast highlighted that it had set a national record by surpassing 100,000 vehicles sold in just three quarters, with Global Deputy CEO of Sales and Marketing Duong Thi Thu Trang casting the achievement as a turning point for the Company and for Vietnam’s auto industry. That combination of scale and symbolism is exactly what lets VinFast claim it has vaulted ahead of foreign rivals in the country’s EV race.
Hyundai and Kia feel the heat in Vietnam’s passenger market
VinFast’s rise would matter less if it were happening in a vacuum, but the real story is how it has shifted the balance of power in Vietnam’s passenger car market. The company has already taken the top spot in that segment, helped by delivering over 9,300 EVs in Vietnam in a single month across models like the VF e34, VF 3, VF 5 and others. That kind of monthly volume puts direct pressure on long-established players such as Hyundai and Kia, which once treated Vietnam as a relatively safe growth market for combustion and hybrid models.
Market share data shows just how much the ground has shifted. By mid-year, VinFast was leading with a 24.5% share, dominating the top four positions in model rankings and crowding out rivals in key segments like SUVs. For Hyundai and Kia, which built their regional strategy on affordable, feature-packed gasoline cars, the message is blunt: in Vietnam’s EV space, the local brand is now the one to beat.
Record-breaking months that changed the leaderboard
The turning point has been a run of record months that lifted VinFast from promising challenger to market anchor. In one standout stretch, the company reported deliveries of 13,914 electric vehicles in September, a figure that underlined how quickly Vietnamese buyers were shifting toward the brand. That same reporting noted how the Vietnamese carmaker was positioning itself as a leading company in Vietnam’s automotive sector, not just in the EV niche.
The momentum did not stop there. In October, VinFast set another benchmark by delivering more than 20,000 cars in a single month, a performance the company itself described as “Sets Another Record, Delivering More Than” that total number of Cars in its PRESS communications. A related PRESS RELEASE highlighted how this surge followed a previous month total of 16,949 units, underscoring that the October spike was part of a sustained climb rather than a one-off promotion.
Vietnam’s EV boom and the regional ripple effect
VinFast’s surge is not happening in isolation, it is riding and reinforcing a broader EV boom inside Vietnam. Cumulative VinFast EV sales in the country have already surpassed 51 thousand units, according to analysis of the domestic market, and that is on top of a wider commercial vehicle sector that saw Domestic deliveries in November 2024 alone reach 16,000 units. Those figures paint a picture of a country where electrification is moving from early adopters to the mass market, helped by local manufacturing and tailored financing.
That domestic surge is starting to reshape Southeast Asia’s EV map. With Vietnam now ranked as the 2nd largest EV market in Southeast Asia, powered in large part by VinFast’s more than 100,000 EVs sold in three quarters, the traditional hierarchy led by Thailand and Indonesia is under pressure. For Hyundai and Kia, which have invested heavily in those neighboring markets, the rise of a Vietnamese champion complicates any assumption that they can simply transplant their regional playbook and expect to dominate EVs everywhere.
How VinFast’s product mix undercuts global rivals
Part of VinFast’s edge comes from how tightly its product mix is tuned to local tastes and budgets. The company has leaned on a spread of models, from the compact VF 3 and VF 5 to the VF e34 and larger SUVs, to cover everything from first-time buyers to families upgrading from older gasoline cars. That breadth helped it deliver over 9,300 EVs in a single month across all vehicle models, a feat that shows how effectively it has filled gaps that Hyundai and Kia have been slower to address with fully electric options.
Pricing and positioning also matter. By anchoring its lineup in the heart of the market rather than chasing only premium buyers, VinFast has turned EVs into a realistic alternative to popular Korean models that used to dominate the mid-range. The fact that it could move more than 20,380 EV deliveries in October 2025 in Vietnam EV sales, as Announced in local reporting, shows that customers are not just curious, they are switching in large numbers. For Hyundai and Kia, whose electric offerings in Vietnam remain limited compared with their global portfolios, that is a direct competitive threat.
Behind the numbers: audits, finances, and staying power
Rapid growth is exciting, but it only matters if the business behind it is solid enough to last. VinFast has started to open up more about its financial footing, including through a detailed update titled VinFast Reports Unaudited Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results. In that document, VinFast Auto Ltd in Singapore laid out how it tracks performance, noting that according to data available on EV registrations in October 2025 it could benchmark its own volumes against the broader market, even as it flagged that these were Reports Unaudited Third Quarter figures rather than a completed audit.
That transparency matters because it signals that VinFast understands the scrutiny that comes with claiming leadership over brands like Hyundai and Kia. The company has emphasized that its national record of surpassing 100,000 vehicles sold in just three quarters comes with a substantial backlog of pending orders, which suggests that demand is not about to evaporate. For investors and rivals alike, the key question now is whether those unaudited Financial Results will translate into the kind of profitability and cash flow that can sustain a long fight with global automakers.
What VinFast’s milestone means for the next EV chapter
VinFast’s ability to outpace Hyundai and Kia in Vietnam’s EV race is a reminder that the electric transition is not a one-size-fits-all story written in Seoul, Tokyo, or Detroit. Local champions with the right mix of product, pricing, and policy support can move faster than global brands that are still juggling legacy combustion portfolios. The Vietnamese company’s run of record months, from 13,914 EV deliveries in September to more than 20,000 Cars in October, has effectively rewritten the leaderboard in its home market.
For Hyundai and Kia, the message from Vietnam is that brand heritage and global scale are no longer enough to guarantee dominance in the EV era. For the rest of Southeast Asia, the rise of a Vietnamese EV powerhouse hints at a more fragmented, competitive future where regional players can set the pace and global giants have to chase. And for VinFast, the milestone is both a victory lap and a stress test: surpassing 100,000 EVs and claiming a 24.5% market share have put it in the spotlight, and now it has to prove it can hold that lead as the rest of the industry finally starts to catch up.
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