Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) has committed itself to Apple Inc’s initiatives for a clean environment by reducing waste and using sources of renewable energy.
Apple said that Hon Hai, known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康) outside Taiwan, is among its 14 final assemblers in China that have “safety science” firm UL’s Zero Waste to Landfill certification.
According to Apple, the UL standard certifies that all manufacturing waste is reused, recycled, composted or used to generate energy when possible.
Photo: Reuters
Apple said that since the landfill validation program began in January last year, assembly sites have diverted more than 140,000 tonnes of waste from landfills.
Hon Hai assembly sites in Guangdong Province’s Shenzhen and Shanxi Province’s Taiyuan were the first in China to receive the certification in terms of waste treatment, Apple said.
Hon Hai, which operates a broad production site in China and employs about 1 million workers there, makes iPhones and iPads for Apple.
Hon Hai has a production compound in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, where the Taiwanese firm is to complete a program to build facilities capable of generating 400 megawatts of solar energy per year by 2018, the US firm said.
Apple said that Hon Hai’s first project to produce 80 megawatts of solar energy was proceeding smoothly.
Apple said that it will partner with suppliers in China to install more than 2 gigawatts of “clean” energy in the coming years in a bid to cut more than 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution in the nation by 2020.
“We want to show the world that you can manufacture responsibly and we’re working alongside our suppliers to help them lower their environmental impact in China,” Apple vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives Lisa Jackson said in a statement.
In related news, Hon Hai is expected to see improved sales this quarter on the back of the upcoming launch of new iPhones, analysts said.
“We expect Hon Hai to go into mass production for new iPhones from the end of this month, benefiting its revenue performance this quarter,” Credit Suisse Group AG analyst Thompson Wu (武光明) said in a note to clients on Monday.
Wu forecast that Hon Hai’s revenue would expand by 9.4 percent to NT$1 trillion (US$31.63 billion) this quarter from last quarter’s NT$922.13 billion.
Gross margin is estimated to climb above 7 percent this quarter from 6 percent last quarter, due to a bigger revenue scale and higher production utilization rate, Wu said.
Daiwa Capital Markets Inc analyst Kylie Huang (黃奎毓) said in a note on Friday last week that a larger revenue scale and favorable product mix would boost Hon Hai’s gross margin to 7.1 percent this quarter.
Hon Hai reported net profit of NT$17.7 billion in the second quarter, with earnings per share of NT$1.13, 30 percent below the market’s consensus estimate, Huang said.
Additional reporting by Lauly Li
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