Foxconn International Holding Ltd (富士康控股), the world's biggest contract maker of mobile phones, had its target share price raised 31 percent by Merrill Lynch & Co after the company won new handset orders.
Merrill Lynch increased the stock's 12-month target price to HK$28.90 from HK$22 and maintained its "buy" rating on the shares, analysts Tony Tseng (曾省吾) and Tien Yu Sieh (謝天裕) wrote in a report yesterday.
Foxconn's annual sales are expected to rise 65 percent from a year earlier to US$10.5 billion this year, as it produces mobile phones under new contracts for companies such as Motorola Inc and Sony-Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, the analysts wrote.
Foxconn International was established in 2000 as the handset division of Taipei-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (
Hon Hai, Taiwan's biggest electronics maker, saw profits increase 43 percent in the second quarter on rising demand for Apple Computer Inc's iPod music players.
Foxconn International competes with firms like Flextronics International Ltd and Elcoteq SE.
"In our opinion, Foxconn is one of the best positioned companies in the supply chain for handsets," Tseng and Sieh wrote in the report.
Shares of Foxconn International rose 1.3 percent yesterday to close at HK$23.75 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The stock has risen 88 percent this year, compared with the Hang Seng Index's 17 percent gain.
Net income for the six months more than doubled to US$302 million from US$146.8 million a year earlier, the firm said last Friday.
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