Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), an iPhone assembler, has benefited from solid demand for Apple Inc’s latest smartphones and other gadgets such as high-end servers, reporting a monthly sales increase of more than 4 percent last month.
Largan Precision Co (大立光), a supplier of Apple’s smartphone camera lenses, also saw a jump in its sales last month, which rose 13 percent month-on-month.
Hon Hai, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, said in a statement on Thursday that it posted NT$418.02 billion (US$15.03 billion) in consolidated sales last month, up 4.08 percent month-on-month and 3.64 percent year-on-year.
Photo: Chen Jou-chen, Taipei Times
The company’s sales were driven by solid demand for Apple’s iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max, as well as for servers, notebook computers and equipment for 5G base stations, analysts said.
The strong sales indicated that Hon Hai’s operations in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou were not affected by severe flooding that began on July 16, analysts said.
The Zhengzhou plant, Hon Hai’s second-largest factory in China, employs 250,000 people who assemble 500,000 iPhones per day, accounting for about 50 percent of global iPhone production, Chinese media reported.
Among Hon Hai’s various divisions, its consumer electronics business posted the best year-on-year sales growth last month, followed by electronic components, computer products and cloud technology-based gadgets, the company said.
On a monthly basis, the electronic components division reported the highest sales growth, ahead of computer products, cloud technology-based gadgets and consumer electronics, Hon Hai said.
Hon Hai’s consolidated sales in the first seven months of the year totaled NT$3.12 trillion, up 26.69 percent from a year earlier.
Largan on Thursday said that its consolidated sales last month rose by 13 percent month-on-month to NT$3.8 billion, marking the second consecutive month of growth.
However, that represented an 18 percent decline from a year earlier, which analysts attributed to a loss of orders from one of its major clients, Huawei Technologies Co (華為), due to sanctions imposed on the Chinese company by the US in September last year.
Largan has forecast a continued monthly increase in sales this month, saying that a shortage of chips has eased to some extent, but a shortage of other raw materials remains.
Lenses of 20 megapixels and more, which have a higher profit margin, accounted for 10 to 20 percent of Largan’s total sales last month, while 10 to 20 megapixel lenses accounted for 40 to 50 percent, and 8 to 10 megapixel lenses comprised 10 percent, Largan said.
Largan’s consolidated sales in the first seven months of the year fell 16 percent year-on-year to NT$25.74 billion.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
CONCERNS: Tech companies investing in AI businesses that purchase their products have raised questions among investors that they are artificially propping up demand Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday said that the company would be participating in OpenAI’s latest funding round, describing it as potentially “the largest investment we’ve ever made.” “We will invest a great deal of money,” Huang told reporters while visiting Taipei. “I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.” Huang did not say exactly how much Nvidia might contribute, but described the investment as “huge.” “Let Sam announce how much he’s going to raise — it’s for him to decide,” Huang said, referring to OpenAI
The global server market is expected to grow 12.8 percent annually this year, with artificial intelligence (AI) servers projected to account for 16.5 percent, driven by continued investment in AI infrastructure by major cloud service providers (CSPs), market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. Global AI server shipments this year are expected to increase 28 percent year-on-year to more than 2.7 million units, driven by sustained demand from CSPs and government sovereign cloud projects, TrendForce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) told the Taipei Times. Demand for GPU-based AI servers, including Nvidia Corp’s GB and Vera Rubin rack systems, is expected to remain high,