Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) yesterday said the company is helping Sharp Corp cut its overseas retail joint ventures as part of efforts to improve the troubled Japanese company’s operations.
“Sharp has its financial problems... Once we officially join the company’s board next month, we will carry out a series of measures to help Sharp make a turnaround as soon as possible,” Gou told shareholders during Hon Hai’s annual general meeting at its headquarters in Tucheng District (土城), New Taipei City.
Gou said Hon Hai vice chairman Tai Jeng-wu (戴正吳) is to attend Sharp’s annual general meeting today, with shareholders expected to approve his appointment as the Japanese firm’s president.
Photo: CNA
Japanese media reported that Hon Hai and its subsidiary, Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準) — which hold a combined 66 percent stake in Sharp — are expected to secure six of Sharp’s nine board seats at the meeting today.
In a bid to lower Sharp’s operating costs, Gou said he plans to withdraw all of Sharp’s investments in joint-venture retail channels overseas, such as Sharp’s joint venture with Taiwanese consumer electronics maker Sampo Corp (聲寶).
Gou said Sharp has too many joint ventures or subsidiaries in overseas markets, and his plan is to help Sharp directly reach consumers in foreign markets instead of through other retailers.
Gou said he is negotiating with the representatives of Roxy Electric Co Ltd — the cofounder of Sharp’s joint venture Sharp Roxy Ltd in Hong Kong — to persuade the firm to dissolve the joint venture.
Sharp does not rule out taking legal action against Roxy Electric to regain its right to sell its products in Hong Kong, he said.
Gou said he aims to accelerate Sharp’s research and development process, turning its patented technologies into commercial products with the aid of Hon Hai’s manufacturing capability, lowering its manufacturing costs and raising its competitiveness.
After Hon Hai officially joins Sharp’s management team next month, the century-old Japanese company will start to evaluate employees’ individual performance instead of as a team like the company used to do, Gou said.
Employees who fail to reach their performance goal will be asked to leave, regardless of their rank or seniority, Gou said, dismissing concern over the departure of a high-ranking Sharp official to join another Japanese flat-panel company as the official is a semiconductor professional, but not a panel expert.
Tai, who also attended Hon Hai’s meeting, told shareholders that after he takes office in Sharp, he plans to set up an overseas headquarters in Shenzhen, China, to be closer to Hon Hai’s manufacturing hub in Asia.
Commenting on the new government’s “New Southbound Policy,” Gou said that Hon Hai has been investing in Southeast Asian countries for at least three years, as the company has to expand its overseas scope due to Taiwan’s limited market demand.
However, Gou added that it would be “unwise” for the government to give up investment opportunities in China, because the country is culturally and geographically close to Taiwan.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS