VinSmart, a Vietnamese manufacturer, has made its way into the US smartphone market. This is all thanks to a deal it made with AT&T to produce almost 2 million devices.
This isn’t the first time AT&T partnered with an Asian manufacturer. In the past years, AT&T partnered with Chinese manufacturer, Tinno, to come up with its phones. But since there has been a hostile relationship between the US government and Chinese telecom companies, AT&T has since decided to look for suppliers other than China.
In line with its entry into the country, AT&T and its prepaid brand, Cricket Wireless, have already started selling a couple of entry-level devices from VinSmart. Both of these phones are priced below $100 and are white-labeled, which means they possess AT&T and Cricket’s brand instead of VinSmart’s logo.
One of the two devices it carries is the AT&T Fusion Z, an affordable smartphone with a 6-inch HD display and USB-C. It runs on a Snapdragon 215 processor and has a 5-megapixel main camera. It also operates Android Go Edition upon release. AT&T Prepaid has listed this device for $80 but is currently selling it for $40.
Meanwhile, the Cricket Influence is another device from VinSmart that features higher-end specs. This device comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 460 processor with 3GB of RAM and 32GB onboard storage. It comes with a notched HD display, a 13-megapixel camera, a fingerprint reader, and runs Android 10 OS upon release. Cricket has priced this device for $110 but is currently offering it to new and existing customers for $40.
