Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) yesterday took to social media to take back the narrative on the company’s track record of keeping its investment promises.
Gou on Facebook lashed out at a report by the Chinese-language Business Today (今周刊) weekly that revisited unrealized Hon Hai investment plans dating back a decade.
The article followed Hon Hai’s pullout from plans to build an LCD plant in Wisconsin that came with one of the largest corporate welfare package in US history on promises that the company would bring in billions of US dolllars of investments and create millions of jobs.
In light of the rise of social media, the company would begin to communicate its progress to the public directly to prevent the spread of misinformation about its investment projects, Gou said.
The company has always striven to meet its commitments and uphold its reputation, but the rollout of its global strategy has been hampered by misconstrued media reports based on piecemeal information, he said.
“All we need is truth, not news,” he added.
The Wisconsin project has been put on the back burner while the state transitions to a new Democratic administration, Gou said.
The project was left in limbo before it got off the ground, Gou said, adding that such setbacks from political shifts are common in the US, as well as Taiwan.
Regarding a promise by the company during former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) term that it would pour NT$80 billion (US$2.59 billion at the current exchange rate) into the Kaohsiung Software Technology Park, of which the magazine said only NT$1.9 billion was realized, Gou said that anyone with basic knowledge of the technology sector would know that the full amount would have been excessive for software development.
The company’s expansion plans in India’s Maharashtra State have been stalled for three years due to difficulties securing land, Gou said, adding that he expects to report progress in the near future.
The company in 2014 reached an agreement with Indonesian President Joko Widodo stipulating that planned factory construction in the country would begin as soon as land is secured, Gou said.
Gou also rejected a claim by Business Today that Hon Hai has fallen short on promises to invest US$12 billion to build a manufacturing facility in in Brazil and that the facility was shuttered in 2015.
The company never committed to the US$12 billion cited in the report, he said, adding that building the iPhone and iPad assembly plant in Brazil, which is still producing phones, cost far less than that.
However, Gou did not respond to the report’s coverage on Hon Hai’s activities in Vietnam.
The magazine said that Hon Hai adjusted its expansion plans in Vietnam after some of its establishment permits were revoked in 2015, as it had failed to fully meet its pledges seven years after gaining government approvals.
Time would tell if Hon Hai would deliver on its promise to build an iPhone plant in Vietnam, which it made in December last year, the report said.
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
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
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.
RSS