Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, placed 10th in semiconductor purchases worldwide last year, US-based market advisory firm Gartner Inc said in a research report on Monday last week.
Gartner said iPhone assembler Hon Hai, known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), last month spent US$7.53 billion on semiconductor purchases, making it the 10th-largest buyer globally.
Its purchases last year were down 6.2 percent from a year earlier, causing it to fall one place in the global rankings, the report said.
Photo: CNA
Apple Inc, the largest buyer for four years in a row, spent US$67.06 billion on chip purchases, although the US consumer electronics giant saw its spending fall 2.6 percent from a year earlier, Gartner said.
Hon Hai accounted for about 1.3 percent of global semiconductor purchases, while Apple comprised 11.1 percent, Gartner said.
Semiconductor buyers last year reduced spending on microchips by 7.6 percent from a year earlier to about US$224.01 billion, which accounted for 37.2 percent of the US$601.69 billion spent on chips globally, the report said.
Fast growing inflation and recession pressures worldwide significantly pushed down demand for PCs and smartphones last year, and affected global original equipment manufacturers’ (OEMs) production, Gartner said.
Most of the top 10 semiconductor buyers are major PC and smartphone manufacturers, it said.
“As a result, a sharp drop in consumer demand for PCs and smartphones prevented the top OEMs from increasing unit production and shipments,” Gartner senior director analyst Masatsune Yamaji said in the report.
China’s strict “zero COVID” policy also caused serious material shortages and short-term disruptions to the electronics supply chain, Yamaji said.
“A lingering semiconductor shortage in the automotive, networking and industrial electronics markets raised chip average selling prices and accelerated semiconductor revenue increases in these markets,” Yamaji said.
Apple lowered spending on computing microprocessing units by 11.7 percent last year, as the company continued to shift to its in-house-designed application processors, but raised spending on non-memory chips by 2.8 percent, the report said.
South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co was the second-largest chip buyer, after spending US$46.07 billion, up 2.2 percent from a year earlier, it said.
It was ahead of Chinese PC brand Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) at US$21.03 billion, US PC vendor Dell Technologies Inc at US$18.30 billion, China’s consumer electronics maker BBK Electronics Corp (步步高電子) at US$18.08 billion, Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi Corp (小米) at US$14.60 billion, China’s telecom equipment supplier Huawei Technologies Co (華為) at US$12.08 billion, US-based PC brand HP Inc at US$11.29 billion and Japanese electronics supplier Sony Group Corp at US$7.98 billion, Gartner said.
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