Hon Hai Precision Precision Industry TPE:2354 also known as Foxconn Technology is the world's biggest contract assembler and manufacturer of electronic components.[1] As a third party supplier it produces such things as optics, power supply modules, fiber optics, enclosures and a variety of connectors for large telecommunications companies including original equipment manufacturers among them Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Sony, Nokia, Microsoft and Ericsson. It also engages in the processing, design and sale of motherboards, cameras and cell phones. The iPhone4s, which Hon Hai manufactures along with the iPad will push revenue higher in 2012, the year of its launch in China. The iPad had over 90% of the tablet market in 2010 but that could decrease to 60% in 2011 due to competition from Android based devices like Amazon's kindle fire. The tablet market is expected to be 42% bigger in 2012 with units sold up to 40 million from 29 million in 2011.[2]
In 2009 subsidiary Foxconn International Holdings partnered with Hewlett Packard to build a US$3 billion laptop production facility in Chongqing capable of making 20 million a year.[3] Such an investment is wise considering the electronics and information industry is on track to become the largest in the city by 2012 and Chongquing has the 23rd largest economy in Mainland China and the 20th largest population in China among administrative regions.
In 2010 the company made a big move into the television equpment market with the purchase of Sony's LCD TV production business in Mexico and Slovakia.[1]
Because of the variety of products it has exposure to a lot of markets and industry sectors. The company was founded in 1974 and maintains corporate offices in Taiwan and the Cayman Islands where limited liability subsidiary Foxconn International Holdings is based (est February 8, 2000).
With nearly 611,000 employees with plans to increase that to 1.3 million (2010) the company is one of the world's leading employers (half of them are work and live at its first and currently largest facility located in Shenzhen, China. The plant is comprised of 15 factories; by having large city like facilities with dormatories and hospitals Hon Hai is able to reduce expenses while improving integration, though cramped conditions negatively affect worker satisfaction and may result in lower worker productivity). By comparison Australia and Brazil's global 2000 companies have less than 1 million employees.[4] Unlike many of its competitors it has an interest in expanding into many new sometimes unrelated industries (does not consider it as risky as other companies do, the risk assessment tends to keep others more focused on a group of closely related products). In November 2010 it agreed to an alliance with three silicon valley companies centered around access to Asian markets, capital support, prototypes (the silicon valley companies are growing in the US market but have limited exposure elsewhere).[5]
Hon Hai also provides after sales services (after market parts).
bil USD[6]'[7] | revenue | profit | assets | shareholders equity |
2008 | 61.860 | 1.748 | na | na |
2009 | 59.3236 | 2.2917 | 31.9858 | 13.767 |
2010 (Jan-Nov) | 65.3817 NT2.07T | 2.4 | 32.0 | |
2011 (Jan-Dec) | 92.0 |
Foxconn International Holdings: As of December 31, 2010 it had a cash balance of US$1,356 million and total assets of $6.017 billion.[10] Total assets were up every year with the exception of 2008 when they were down 17.6% on the calendar year (the decrease showed up at the end of the company's 2009 fiscal year which ends in June, assets were down 28.7% from $6.7b to $5.2b.
fx rate used for first 11 months of 2010 is 31.660209, calculated using data found at xrates.com.[11]