Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the largest assembler of Apple Inc iPhones, on Monday said that revenue last month declined 12.89 percent annually to NT$539.51 billion (US$17.93 billion), ending nine consecutive months of annual growth.
While market analysts attributed the decline mostly to a high comparison base last year, the figure also represented a 10.48 percent decrease from November’s revenue of NT$602.65 billion.
The monthly contraction was the result of advance orders from clients seeking to avoid additional US tariffs on China-made products that were scheduled to take effect in the middle of last month, analysts said.
Hon Hai said that sales were mainly driven by its corporate products segment, followed by electronic components, and communication and consumer electronics businesses.
Overall revenue last year reached a new high of NT$5.34 trillion, inching up 0.82 percent from NT$5.29 trillion in 2018, beating its forecast.
Amid rumors that Apple would release its second-generation budget iPhone, dubbed the iPhone SE2, in the first half of this year, market hopes are high as analysts expect a strong performance from Hon Hai this quarter.
Meanwhile, Hon Hai has canceled its plan to build an manufacturing plant for mobile phones and related components in India, two English-language newspapers — the Hindu and the Times of India — reported yesterday.
Hon Hai, known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, broke its commitment to invest about US$5 billion in Maharashtra state, the papers said, citing Maharashtra Minister for Industries and Mining Subhash Desai.
The investment was previewed by a memorandum of understanding signed between Hon Hai and the state government in 2015, the reports said.
“The investment commitment made by Foxconn is not coming through. It will not happen in the future as well. While they had taken up land near Navi Mumbai to set up initial facilities, it seems like multiple factors have led to their exit from Maharashtra,” Desai was quoted as saying.
Desai cited underlying factors such as prevailing global economic conditions, better performance by Foxconn’s competitors and internal disagreements with Apple, which have ensured that the company could not get a head start, the newspapers said.
Hon Hai owns a plant in Tamil Nadu, near Chennai, where it assembles Apple’s iPhone XR, and has another plant in Sri City, where it makes mobile phones for China’s Xiaomi Corp (小米).
However, Hon Hai yesterday denied having a dispute with its US client, adding that its investment in India is going smoothly.
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