Viettel and VNPT will report R&D spending near 3% of revenue within two years, though most of the increase will come from relabelling existing technology costs rather than genuine new research.

Vietnam is drafting rules letting its biggest tech firms claim official "advanced economy" status if they meet certain criteria, including spending 3% of revenue on R&D, but Viettel and VNPT currently spend only around 1%. With no strict rule separating true research from routine network upgrades or software procurement, reclassifying existing spending as R&D is the cheaper route to the threshold.