Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) FoxconnMall.com (富貿商城), a one-stop business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce portal, went online yesterday, marking a milestone for the conglomerate as it continues to branch out into business sectors other than manufacturing.
A newly formed Hon Hai subsidiary in Shenzhen is to oversee the platform’s operations and ensure that registered members are qualified.
The platform focuses on facilitating business in 16 trade and service categories for manufacturers, including molds, parts, equipment and materials.
Hon Hai emphasized that its B2B e-commerce platform is supported by an array of customized manufacturing and financing services and a virtual showroom that allows sellers to display their wares through 3D-rendered images.
Clients can also sift through competing offers by using the portal’s comparative analysis tools. Apart from offering a variety of manufacturing processes and services such as mold making, packaging and machining, the platform also offers analytical modeling and design services and even online insurance, financing and transaction processing services.
Qualified clients are to be given a line of credit, the company said.
The platform is backed by 500,000m2 of warehouse space located across 45 facilities worldwide, and its online service network covers 600 major cities in the Greater China region.
Hon Hai has in recent years sought to branch out beyond its core manufacturing business, and it has established footholds in such markets as cloud computing, mobile broadband, the Internet of Things, big data and smart home appliances in anticipation of the arrival of “Industry 4.0,” which emphasizes smart automation in manufacturing.
The conglomerate’s sweeping strategy shift puts a priority on technology services and solutions and integrating its manufacturing capabilities with a presence in distribution and retailing.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained